


Bucky Barnes and the Lost Treasure of Thinis

by Cryo_Bucky, littleblackfox



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Mummy, Egyptology, Historically Accurate Capers, I'll see you in Hell Wallis Budge, M/M, Mutual Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-08-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 09:11:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 46,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19460884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryo_Bucky/pseuds/Cryo_Bucky, https://archiveofourown.org/users/littleblackfox/pseuds/littleblackfox
Summary: Thinis is a myth," Fury says dismissively. “Like Hamunaptra and Wakanda. I’m surprised at you, Steve. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so easily fooled.”





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> For Meg, who talked me into it :D  
> Special thanks to NurseDarry for being such an excellent beta reader and friend

They are going to get court-martialed for this.  
Okay, their _corpses_ are going to get court-martialed for this.  
The scarf does little to keep the sand out of Bucky’s eyes, as he ducks behind the weathered stones jutting out from the desert, and his flat-topped kepi was lost in the scramble for shelter. There is less than an hour before dawn, the star-studded sky overhead already stained red and gold to the east.  
To the west the stars can still be seen, and across the sand comes the thunder of hooves and the distant ululation of the Tuareg warriors. What’s left of the regiment hunkers down behind the litter of great weathered stones they’ve found cover in, and wait for death or daybreak. The desert is filled with them, relics from the ancients, statues of gods and pharaohs weathered by sand and wind into shapeless masses of stone.  
Bucky swallows, his throat dry and sand clinging to his teeth. There’s nowhere left to go, nothing but sand in every direction.  
“Who’s stupid idea was this anyway?” Bucky mutters, voice muffled by his scarf.  
Dugan, back pressed to the crumbling plinth where a statue might once have stood, snorts and pushes up the brim on his non-standard issue bowler hat. “It wasn’t me.”  
“Nor me,” Jones calls from the other side of him. “I voted to stay in Sirte.”  
Christ, how long ago was that? After marching through the desert from Algiers to Libya, Colonel Phillips had directed the troops to the coast. The sight of the ocean had been enough to bring Bucky to his knees, all that water, stretching further than the eye could see.  
So much water, and you couldn’t drink a damn drop of it.  
“It was a shabby little cluster of mud huts on the banks of a foul-smelling stream,” Falsworth, their British contingent, announces and gets a smack in the gut from Jones.

Sixteen days, Bucky counts them out like pennies. Sixteen days since they stopped at Sirte to resupply. Thirteen days since they struck out into the desert again. Thirteen days since he last saw the ocean.  
“Hodge,” Dernier announces, Gauloise twitching between his lips. “Ne l’écoute pas, c’est un con.”  
“A bit late for that,” Jones mutters.  
Morita, the last member of his unit, clicks his fingers, catching their attention. “Sergeant?” he mutters, and Bucky sits up. Colonel Phillips is on the move again, climbing up into his saddle and bellowing orders.  
“Looks like we’re falling back, fellas,” Bucky says, picking up his rifle.  
“Where?” Falsworth whips around, searching the ruins. “Where the hell are we supposed to fall back to?”  
Dugan, who has had his back to the Tuareg the whole damn time, his eye on Bucky’s six as always, points. “There.”  
Bucky turns, following the line of his finger. As the sun breaks the horizon, something shimmers in the distance, beyond the ragged stone lines the garrison have been cowering behind. An ancient city that had not been there moments before.  
Crumbling stone walls rise up from the dunes, surrounding a ruined city, half-swallowed by the sands. Tall obelisks, once sharp-edged and engraved with arcane symbols, point towards the unforgiving sky. Columns and arches stand in haphazard arrangements, all that remains of some greater structure.  
Something roils in the pit of Bucky’s stomach at the sight of it. Some animal instinct claws up his spine, urging him to run.

Phillips raises his sword, shouting orders in a garble of English and French, and Bucky hustles the unit into motion, shouldering his rifle and watching the desert as Hell charges towards them. They peel off one by one, joining the wave of Infantrymen shambling through the sands.  
Bucky waits until they are clear before following, cursing under his breath as he scrambles from cover to cover. When he finally reaches the high wall surrounding the city he stops to look back, and instantly regrets it.  
For days they have been harried across the desert by the Tuareg, their numbers only seeming to swell while the garrison’s were slowly depleted, men lost to exhaustion and gunfire. And now the riders bear down upon them in their hundreds, in their thousands, their horses hooves kicking up a dust storm that is in danger of blotting out the rising sun.  
In the flurry of sand and bodies Bucky glimpses flashes of white ghutrah and black headscarves, too many to count, and retreats behind the wall to rejoin his brothers.

“You sure it was Hodge?” he asks as he drops down beside Jones, already in position with his rifle.  
Phillips rides past them, ordering the Infantrymen into line. A last stand in the ruins of an ancient city, it’s not how Bucky had planned on going out.  
“You getting old, Sergeant?” Jones manages a grin. “Memory ain’t what it used to be?”  
Bucky remembers. He remembers the men still reeling from the Great War being sent out to fight again, not for honour or freedom, but a stretch of land from Fez to Oujda.  
It had started in the barracks, with the news of Howard Carter and his recent discovery. A boy king and a tomb filled to the ceiling with gold. One of the Infantrymen had gotten hold of a newspaper and read out the report to the rest of the garrison. They had listened, silent and ravenous, at the tales of golden statues and treasures.  
Dernier was right, it was Hodge who spoke up. Gilmore Hodge with his big mouth, asking why it was the British who were getting hold of all this treasure.  
He doesn’t remember who said Abydos first. That creepy little Swiss guy? Maybe, maybe not, but the next thing Bucky knew someone had a map and they were plotting a route. Thirty days marching, they’d said. Thirty days and they’d all be rich.  
Bucky checks the chamber of his rifle before taking position. “Remind me to punch him in the teeth next chance I get.”  
"Je veux lui défoncer la gueule.” Dernier adds.  
“Hey Dernier,” Dugan calls over. “What’s a Frenchman doing in the French Foreign Legion anyways?”  
“Je suis Canadien,” he replies with an exaggerated wink.

The riders are bearing down on them, and Phillips circles his horse around, roaring at the men to stand their ground. The air fills with their battle cries, a high pitched yiyiyi that rings in Bucky’s ears and sets his teeth on edge.  
“Hold your goddamn ground,” Phillips bellows as he charges past.  
The men are twitchy, on edge, and Bucky can’t blame them. Staring down at a hoard of riders armed to the teeth, with only their rifles and the last of their ammunition to hand. They can’t afford to waste a single bullet, sitting tight until the attackers are within range.  
“Steady!” Phillips calls out as the first shots ring out. The men flinch, ducking behind the wall, though no weapon could hit a target from this distance.  
There is a heavy thump, and a panicked whinnying, and Bucky turns to see Phillips on the ground, red soaking into the sand. The horse kicks, twisting away from where he lies, and takes off into the ruins at a gallop.  
“Sir!” Bucky yells, but there is no response. He breaks the line, scrambling over to move the Colonel onto his back.  
An unlucky shot, right through the old man’s shoulder, knocking him from his horse and onto the ruins, his skull bashed in on the rocks.  
“Damnit,” Bucky whispers as Falsworth crouches down beside him, their only surviving medic. Bucky sits back and lets him work, knowing that it’s hopeless. He looks around for the next most senior officer, only to find a dozen sets of eyes on him.  
“Looks like you just got promoted,” Morita tells him, and Bucky curses again, pulling him back into line.

The rifle is heavy in Bucky’s hand, the morning sun starting to burn the exposed nape of his neck.  
“Steady!” Bucky shouts as dust fills the air, great plumes of sand kicked up by the horses washing over them.  
A little closer, just a little bit. What was it Phillips used to say? _Don’t shoot until you see the whites of their eyes_. Not that it did him any good in the end.  
He readjusts his grip, checking there is a round in the chamber before taking aim. He has enough time to linger on the unfairness of it all, how they are the invaders on these peoples land, before the riders crash over them like a wave.  
“Fire!”

Blood and sand. Everywhere he looks he sees blood and sand. His ears fill with the percussive blast of gunfire, with the screaming of the horses and the wailing of the horsemen.  
He fires shot after shot into the melee, reloading the rifle with fingers numb from the kickback before taking aim and firing again.  
Dugan bellows something, but Bucky cannot understand him, language rendered nothing more than another shriek in the chaos, and only comprehending when he is grabbed by the jacket and pulled away from the wall. Dugan drags him over to where Falsworth and Jones are sheltering behind a fallen column. Falsworth shouts a greeting before ducking around the side of the column and making a few desperate shots.  
Bucky does a quick head count. “Where’s Dernier?”  
As if in answer there is an explosion on the far side of the ruins, sand and rubble spinning through the air as a great plume of smoke rises up into the sky. The shockwave has Bucky staggering, the pillars around them shifting ominously.  
“Never mind,” he mutters, taking position alongside Falsworth and firing into the melee.  
He weighs each shot before pulling the trigger, tracking his targets as they charge through the ruins, making every one count. Far too soon he runs out of ammunition and casts the rifle aside. Scarce two hundred men against more than a thousand Tuareg riders, they never stood a chance.

Jones lets out a yelp, and for a moment Bucky fears he’s been shot.  
“What happened?” Bucky calls out, checking his clothes for blood and finding none.  
Jones curses, staggering back. The sand beneath his feet stirs and shifts, movements unlike anything Bucky has ever seen.  
“What the hell?” Dugan hisses, and a spray of sand flies up towards him.  
“Move!” Bucky yells. “Get onto higher ground!”  
He casts around, looking for a safe place as the sand whips up around them. Beyond their meagre shelter the Tuareg horses neigh and rear up, throwing off their riders. The sands rise up around them, swallowing up the fallen men and dragging them into the dirt.  
In the midst of the battle Bucky spots a white cap, an Infantryman fleeing the battle, dodging out of the way of Tuareg and Legionnaires alike. Hodge, making a beeline for a temple further into the city, a large stone building fronted by columns. A heavy basalt door, inscribed with hieroglyphics, stands ajar, and it is there Hodge is racing towards.  
If they can get in there, maybe they’ll be safe.  
“This way!” Bucky yells. “This way.”

What is that noise? That wailing on the edge of Bucky’s hearing? It’s not the roar of Dugan, charging across the sand to the promise of safe haven, nor is it the Tuareg circling around them, calling back and forth as their horses kick and scream.  
“C’mon, Sarge!” Dugan yells, snagging Bucky by the collar and dragging him out of the path of a horse.  
Under their feet the sand tips and rolls, like the crashing of waves, and they run in a ragged line to shelter.  
“Hodge!” Falsworth yells as the man reaches the temple, and starts to tug at the stone door. “Don’t you bloody-”  
Bucky picks up speed, but slams into the door a moment after it has shut.  
“Hodge, you bastard sonofa-” Bucky kicks the door and lets out a yelp, stumbling back and stamping his sore foot in the dirt.  
Riders start to circle the temple, hollering back and forth, and the men cast doleful glances to each other.  
“Looks like we’re done for, chaps,” Falsworth says softly. “It’s been an honour.”  
Bucky grits his teeth. “Save it,” he says, harsh and clipped. “Get up on the roof.”  
“What?” Mortia hisses.  
“I said get up on the roof.” Bucky points to the flat top of the temple. “Keep low, away from the edges. I’ll draw them off.”  
“Sarge, you-” Dugan begins, cutting himself off when Bucky charges the nearest horse.

Stupid idea. Stupid idea in a long history of stupid ideas. The first horse rears back as Bucky barrels towards it, hooves kicking out and missing his face by an inch. He skitters back, colliding against the side of another horse, and tears off through the ruins. The Tuareg gather their senses far too quickly for Bucky’s liking, chasing after him as he clambers over rocks and ducks under fallen columns, tracing an erratic, zigzagging route through the city.  
He pulls a pistol from his holster, ducking behind an obelisk and taking a few shots at the riders. Most go wild, but one or two hit their target. The scream of the horses stays with him longer than the wails of the riders thrown to the ground.  
He can’t afford to stay still for long, and doubles back the way he came, banking on the time it takes to turn the horses around to give him a few extra seconds.  
Further and further from the temple he leads them, spinning around and firing his gun every chance he can. He reloads on the run, spilling shells in the sand and he wheezes for breath, hands shaking, until there are no bullets left. Out of ammunition, out of options, he runs for as long as his legs can carry him.

Away from the temple, that’s the only goal he has. Away from the temple, where the last dregs of his unit are (please God let them be) hidden from harm. He’s been a terrible Sergeant, and a worse Colonel, if he can give them this last fighting chance, that would be worth it.  
The riders split up, one group keeping at his heels while the other peels away to the south. Bucky rolls under a fallen pillar, mouth filling with sand, and struggles to his feet. Whatever strange dervish lurks under the dunes chases him as doggedly as the riders, forcing him left when he tries to go right, rising up in a shimmering wall to block off the way and spinning him on his heels.  
It moves with purpose, like a living thing, and it is leading him somewhere. He’s a lamb being led to slaughter. He knows it. He keeps running.  
A horse bolts out of nowhere to his left, cutting off his escape, and Bucky throws himself over a low stone wall to avoid it, hitting the ground in some abandoned courtyard and rolling ass over elbow before hauling himself to his feet.  
“Fuck!” he hisses, stumbling on.

A dead end. High, weathered walls to his left and his right, and before him a statue, half swallowed by the sands.  
There is a high ululation behind him, and he turns to see half a dozen Tuareg riders, their horses leaping over the stone wall. They form a line, blocking him in. There’s nowhere left to go, and Bucky backs up against the statue, his head twitching to the side as if it would hurt less if he didn’t face death head on.  
The horses toss their manes, eyes rolling, as the riders ready their guns. Bucky grits his teeth, bracing for the first shot.  
The sand between them churns, that low wailing sound rises up into a scream. A mouth forms in the shifting sands, wide open, teeth bared, and howls a desert wind.  
A face forms around it. Nostrils flared, eyes screwed shut, the face in the sand twists from side to side and screams again.  
Bucky collapses back against the statue, hands grasping the worn stone, and the horses rear up, shaking off their riders as they turn and run. The Tuareg scramble to their feet, not daring to look back as they escape, uttering their own frenzied screams as they flee the city.  
Bucky finds himself trapped, frozen in place like a rat in the thrall of a serpent. Terror claws up his throat, heart pounding, skin prickling, and he swallows it down before it chokes the life out of him. He inches away from the statue, eyes flicking up to see a jackal head looming over him. The face in the sand roars again, and Bucky regains enough sense to run.

*

“Go!” Bucky yells, clambering up onto the roof of the temple. “We gotta go.”  
“What the hell…?” Morita looks him up and down, and Bucky knows he must look deranged, caked in sand and blood and screaming at them to make for the desert.  
“The riders have gone.” Jones points to the dust clouds kicked up by the distant horses, beyond the bodies of horses and men that fill the ravaged streets. “We’re safe.”  
Bucky looks down at the city. So many dead, and what does it matter if they are Tuareg or Legionnaires? It makes it no less terrible to see their bodies lying so still.  
“We gotta go,” he says, pushing anyone within reach towards the edge. “Bad place. Cursed. Gotta go.”  
He ignores their questions, shaking his head again and again as he hustles them down from their perch and onto the still shifting sands. He doesn’t let them stop for weapons or supplies, just keeps shoving them towards the city walls, like an anxious cat herding her kittens.  
It is only when they enter the desert that Bucky finally calms, turning back to look upon the city, only for it to fade like a mirage into endless dunes.  
“What the hell?” Dugan scans the empty sands in search of it. “Where did it go?”  
Bucky says nothing, his gaze on a plateau in the distance. A figure on horseback stares down at them, and after a moment takes up his reins, leading the horse away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “Ne l’écoute pas, c’est un con” - Don’t listen to him, he’s an asshole  
> "Je veux lui défoncer la gueule" - I want to beat the shit out of him


	2. A Very Good Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Were you really there?” Steven asks. “Do you swear?”  
> “All the fucking time.” Barnes grins, sharp and bright and dear gods Steven doesn’t like it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ten thousand thank you's to Meg for the gorgeous art, and to Darry for clipping me around the ear when I get excitable with commas.  
> Go send some love Meg's way on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/cryobuckys) or [Tumblr](https://cryo-bucky.tumblr.com)  
> You can find me being ineffable on [Tumblr](https://thelittleblackfox.tumblr.com)

The Cairo Museum of Antiquities is not one of the most highly regarded places of learning for the would-be Egyptian scholar, nor is it the most popular. It does not possess the wealth and resources of the British Museum in London, or the Museo Egizio in Turin. It couldn’t even be called the best museum in Cairo, that was on the other side of the Nile in Tahir Square.  
But what it does have is books, and in the bowels of the museum are the stacks, row upon row of bookshelves gathering dust. Perched at the top of a rickety ladder, the books tucked under his arm threatening to slip, Steven’s brow furrows, sending his thick-rimmed glasses sliding down his nose. Lacking a free hand to adjust them, he wrinkles his nose, as if he could work them back up into place.  
The Museum of Antiquities is not famous, or as regarded as the one across the river, but they all seek the same thing - enlightenment - and that’s all that matters really. And although the Museum of Cairo has the most extensive collection of artefacts housed in the finest building, including the funerary mask of Tutankhamun, it has also rejected Steven’s applications no less than five times.  
Steven sniffs, pulling a heavy leather bound volume from his armful and checking the spine. Screw the lot of them, he prefers it here anyway, and at least he is in Cairo. In a city so ancient the stars themselves have changed their course since its founding; that has to count for something.  
He slots the book back into place on the shelf, and shoves his glasses up his nose before teasing out another book from the stash wedged under his arm.  
“Volume two,” he mutters as he shoves the book in its place, then checks the spine of the last one. “Volume three.”  
He lifts the book up, ready to slot it alongside volume two, but there is a book already in its place.  
“The Story of Sinhue?” he mutters. “What are you doing here?”  
He swaps the two books around, putting volume three where it belongs and tugging out the interloper before climbing down the ladder.  
Books titled S-Su are further down the stacks, so he lifts up the ladder with his free hand and goes in search of his books rightful home.

“Rogers!”  
The door bursts upon just as Steve is putting The Story of Sinhue on the shelf, and he lets out a startled yelp, grabbing the shelf to keep himself steady. The bookcase wobbles ominously and the ladder, not wanting to miss out on the fun it seems, wobbles with it.  
“Ah. Mr Fury,” Steve calls down as the museum Curator stalks towards him, a letter clenched in his fist. “How…” The ladder wobbles again, and Steven grips the shelf a little tighter, his knuckles turning white as he strains to pull himself upright. “How are you?”  
Mr Fury regards him with one cold, unforgiving eye, the other hidden behind a worn leather eyepatch a shade darker than his skin. “I am not happy, Rogers. Get down here.”  
Steve climbs down the ladder, setting it to one side before facing his employer.  
“What the hell is this?” Fury waves a crumpled sheet of paper at him.  
“A letter?” Steve suggests, and gets glowered at. Fury can’t exactly loom over him, Steve stands a little over six feet, but under his itchy wool suit he’s hardly all muscles. The only weights he lifts are books after all.  
“You wrote a paper on the archeologist and author Wallis Budge, and submitted it to the Journal of Egyptian Archeology,” Fury says slowly.  
“Oh.” Steve swallows. “That.”  
“Yes, that.” Fury makes a show of rereading the letter, though Steven doesn’t doubt he has the whole thing memorised already. “A letter in which you refer to the _esteemed_ Budge, a man who was _knighted_ in 1920 for his contributions to Egyptian academia, as ‘a charlatan and a fraud’.”  
“Yes, well-”  
“You accuse him of plagiarising the work of his students.”  
“Which he has.”  
“And plundering tombs for personal gain.”  
“Which he _has_!” Steve repeats. “I provided sources and citations for every statement in that article, Mr Fury. You can doubt my word but do not doubt my sources, the man has stolen grave goods-”  
“This is Egypt!” Fury yells. “Everyone steals grave goods!”  
“Well they shouldn’t!” Steven yells back.

Fury blinks at him, as if he can’t quite believe someone would ever dare raise their voice to him. Steven figures he has maybe ten seconds before the man has him mummified and put out on display, and he ought to go down swinging.  
“His studies of Egyptian magic are laughable, all his hypotheses formed through the prism of Protestant Christianity. And his translations?” Steve turns to the nearest shelf, thumbing through the spines and pulling out a book. He flicks through the pages frantically, before turning the book around to show Fury a page of hieroglyphs, jabbing his finger at a row of three female figures standing with knees bent. Between their knees are little vertical dashes. “You know what he says these mean? ‘Micturition’. All three of them. Honestly, has the man never heard of the menstrual cycle? And-”  
“This!” Fury waves a hand between Steven and his book. “This is why no one else will hire you.”  
Steve slams the book shut with a wounded little sound. “You heard about that?”  
“Yes, everyone heard.” He brandishes the letter again. “Now whatever your personal opinion of this man might be, you wrote an article and submitted it to a peer reviewed journal. _And put this institutions name on it_.”  
“Well,” Steve says slowly. “I do work here.”  
Fury screws up his face, looking about ready to explode. “Why?” he asks, and Steve is definitely about to get fired. “Remind me why that is?”

Steve’s gaze flicks from Fury to the stacks around them, scratching around for something, some reason to keep his job. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose, buying a few seconds to think.  
“Well.. I can decipher and transcribe around four hundred hieroglyphics.” Okay, so that’s a pretty good start. What else? “And can read Demotic _and_ Hieratic. And Coptic.”  
Steven frowns, because damnit he is good at what he does, not matter what the hiring department at Cairo Museum or the scholars of Bembridge have to say. “Not to mention that I’m the only person within a thousand miles who knows how to properly catalogue and curate this library.”  
“You work here because Howard and Maria Stark were friends of the Museum, not to mention its most generous patrons.” Fury’s voice softens, just a little. “Now Tony may have gone off the rails, scrabbling about Karnak in search of trinkets when he’s not busy gambling away the family fortune-”  
“How dare you talk about my brother like that!” Steve bristles. “Tony fought in the Great War! And alright, so he’s not had much luck-”  
“Tony gambled and drank his career away,” Fury barrels over Steve’s outraged sputtering. “You’re here because I don’t want to see you stumbling down the same sorry path.”  
“I-” Steve begins, but gets the letter shoved at him.  
“You will issue a formal apology,” Fury insists.  
“I will not!”  
“You. Will. Apologise.” Fury gives him a last, baleful glare. “Or you will find employment elsewhere.”  
With that Fury turns on his heel and stalks out of the library. Steven clutches the book and letter to his chest, mouth opening and closing, but no retort comes out. When Fury’s footsteps have long since echoed away, he quietly puts the book back on the shelf

“Knock knock?”  
Steve turns to see a familiar figure in the doorway, his once-sharp suit looking a little rough around the edges.  
“Tony,” Steven sighs. “How long have you been there?”  
Tony works his jaw. “Long enough,” he admits. “You didn’t have to, uh.” He circles a finger in the air, and Steven swears under his breath. He can smell the whisky on Tony’s breath, and it’s not even midday.  
He hadn’t been lying to Fury, Tony had fought in the Great War. Steven had tried to enlist, but his need for glasses and useless lungs in anything but arid desert saw him stuck behind a desk. Maria told him his work was just as important in the war effort, but it was hard to believe when so many men never came home.  
And then there were the ones like his brother. He came back, thank god, but came back… changed.  
“You’re my brother,” Steven says, scrunching up the letter and dropping it in the trash. “Of course I stick up for you.”  
“Cute, but technically speaking-”  
“Don’t start this again.”  
“You’re adopted.”  
“It still counts.”  
Tony shoves a hand in his pocket, and there is a metallic sound of his watch connecting with something. “Yeah, well you gotta stop telling people I was in the war.”  
“Why not?” Steve nudges his glasses up his nose again. Damn things. “You were.”  
“Yeah, and you weren’t.”  
“What do you want, Tony?” Steven snaps, frustration and dumb, useless anger at getting fired from the one place that would have him lending a sharp edge to his words. “If you’re after another loan…”  
“No, no.” Tony shakes his head, then seems to reconsider. “Though if you’re flush right now? I’d pay you back by the end of the week…”  
Steven curses, and Tony holds his hands up, palms out. “Okay, forget it. Moving on.”

Tony sways towards him with the exaggerated care of the extremely drunk. He rummages around in his pocket, getting his hand stuck before pulling out a piece of something wrapped in papyrus with a flourish. Tony fumbles the object, snatching it out of the air and holding it up triumphantly.  
“Look!” He says with pride, the kind that makes Steven’s heart clench. “I promise it’s not another mummified cat.”  
Steven reaches out to take the object, around ten inches in height. The papyrus is stiff and coarse textured, and when unfurled reveals a golden figure. A male bearing twin spears, hieroglyphics carved in vertical lines down the front of his body, at the soles of its feet.  
“Please tell me I found something,” Tony pleads. “I never find anything.”  
Steven shushes him, turning the figure around to study the carved weapons in its crossed arms. “Where did you get it?”  
“A dig down in Thebes,” Tony says airily. “How much d’you think I can get for it? You can show it to Fury, right? He won’t talk to me since-”  
“I’m not your go-between, Tony,” Steve mutters, tracing a finger along the neat lines of script. “Besides, I doubt Mr Fury will be willing to bargain, not now I’ve been dismissed.”  
“Oh, come on! You can…” Tony trails off. “You got canned?”  
Steven nods, his attention still on the figure in his hands.

While Steven translates, murmuring syllables under his breath, Tony fidgets. “Why did you get fired?” he asks abruptly.  
“That article on Budge you told me not to submit.”  
“Oh.” Tony grimaces. “Ouch. What about the-”  
“Rejected.” Steven’s tone is clipped. “Again.”  
“Huh.” Tony leans against a bookcase, straightening up when it wobbles under the strain. “Hey, what about England? Didn’t you write to Howard Carter about a dig?”  
“Howard Carter is possibly the most loathsome individual to set foot in Cairo!” Steven looks up from his studies. “He stole a collar off the neck of Tutankhamun and gave it to his dentist. He pocketed beads from the tomb and gave them to his secretary. The man is a thief and a scoundrel. I went to look at that tomb, and there was no way grave robbers had gotten there first like he claimed. “ Steve waves the figure and papyrus around as he gestures to the air. “What kind of thief takes bottles of embalming fluid and leaves gold rings?”  
Tony sighs and pointedly studies his fingernails, waiting for Steven to run out of steam, if nothing else.  
“At least he was generous?”  
“Generous?” Steven’s voice rises an octave. “He moved objects around in the burial chamber! We have no idea what state it was in originally! He didn’t even wait for Egyptian officials before smashing his way in there, and then hiding the hole with a pile of brushwood!”  
Tony hums along, gnawing at a hangnail until Steven finally runs out of complaints, his shoulders sagging.  
“ _Margaret_ Carter declined my application,” he says at last. “Because I don’t have enough experience in the field.”  
“Well, there you go,” Tony gestures to him. “Make something up. Stop being so honest in your damned resumes.”  
Steven gives him a sideways glance. “Forgive me if I don’t stoop to your level, Tony.”  
“Aw, come on.” But whatever Tony says, Steven doesn’t hear it, finally looking down at papyrus in his hand.  
“Oh.”

Tony straightens up, instantly alert. “Oh?” he asks. “What’s oh? Is it a good oh? What is it?”  
Steven doesn’t answer, unfurling the papyrus. “This is a map.”  
He holds it up for Tony to see. Stylised water flows from an urn down the right hand side of the map, while on the left figures kneel with their arms spread, hawk wings extending out from their reach. Dense patches of hieroglyphics fill the bottom half of the sheet, sacred names in white painted cartouches standing out from the pale gold page.  
“What the hell kind of map is that?” Tony asks. “And what about my statue?”  
“This?” Steven tosses the statue back to him. “It’s an Ushabti. Looks like a guard to watch over the dead.”  
Tony grabs the golden statue, giving Steven an unimpressed look as he mumbles to himself, studying the map in more detail.  
“So you’re saying that’s the treasure?” he asks, looking doubtful that paper would be worth more than gold.  
Steven nods, his eyes shining. “We must show it to Mr Fury.”

*

Fury doesn’t bother looking up from his desk when Steven and Tony come bursting into his office.  
“Mr Fury!” Steve slams down a sheet of papyrus in front of him. “Look at this.”  
“Is it a letter of apology to Wallis Budge?” he asks, dry as the desert.  
“No.” Steven adjusts the sheet, nudging it closer to him. “Look here, in this cartouche. It’s the royal seal of Menes, isn’t it?”  
Fury lets out a curious _hrm_? and pulls the sheet closer, holding it up to a lamp to get a better look.  
“Menes?” Tony leans over Fury’s shoulder. “Was he rich?”  
“He was the first Pharaoh,” Steve answers. “He united Upper and Lower Egypt, and was the founder of the First Dynasty.”  
“So he was rich?” Tony says gleefully.  
“I wouldn’t…” Steven hesitates. “First Dynasty burials were… modest, compared to the later ones. But this is an important archeological discovery. I am certain that this is a map leading to _Tjenu_ , or Thinis as it’s more commonly known. The long lost capital city of the First Dynasty.” Fury makes an odd little noise, but Steven continues undaunted. “There’s no telling how much knowledge can be gained from its rediscovery.”  
There is a flare of light, and the edge of the map goes up in flames, the dry papyrus held too close to a flame. Fury drops it, letting it flutter to the floor, and Steven yells in alarm, grabbing the papyrus and swatting at the flames burning their way through the brightly coloured pictograms.  
Almost a third of the map is destroyed, the singed edges curling and smouldering. Steve holds it up to the light desperately, but the marker for the lost city and the landmarks around it are blackened and unreadable.  
“You burned it!” he whines. “A centuries old map and you burned it!”  
“It was a fake,” Fury says dismissively. “Thinis is a myth, like Hamunaptra and Wakanda. I’m surprised at you, Rogers. I wouldn’t have thought you’d be so easily fooled.”  
Steven glares at him, but Fury ignores him, going back to the stack of unburned papers still covering his desk.  
“Now, if you don’t have a letter of apology,” he says coldly. “Get out before I have you thrown out.”

***

Cairo prison is a rat-infested hell hole the likes of which Steven has never seen. Thick adobe walls surround the prison itself, with dense iron mesh embedded in the narrow windows. The air is thick with flies and the stink of too many bodies in hot, confined spaces, and Steven covers his mouth as a guard leads him and Tony across the main courtyard.  
“You’re a liar,” Steven’s voice is muffled by his sleeves. “A liar and a thief.”  
Their guard shouts at another across the courtyard, who shouts back, waving his arms.  
Tony snorts, unbuttoning his suit jacket. “That’s a bit much, don’t you think?”  
“You told me that you found the ushabti on a dig in Thebes!”  
Both guards hurry off, barely sparing them a backwards glance.  
“So?” Tony glances around, looking for something Steve can only imagine. “I lie to everyone.”  
“Even your own brother?”  
“Most of all.” Steven scowls and Tony holds his hands up, placating. “Look, if I told you I’d stolen it you’d have made me give it back.”  
“You’re damn right I would!”  
“Well you can’t,” Tony says lightly. “I already sold it.”  
Before Steven can say anything more the guards reappear with the prison warden, a tall, fine featured man who looks out of place amongst the rogues and cutthroats.  
“Wilson, was it?” Tony latches on to the change of subject, reaching out to shake the warden’s hand.  
“That I am,” the man replies. “This way, gentlemen. Keep away from the bars, these scum don’t play nice.”

The warden leads them away from the courtyard to a holding area, where a row of cells stands behind thick iron bars. Tony stands a little further back while the warden shouts for the prisoner to be brought out.  
“What is he in prison for?” Steven asks as the guards unlock a wooden door to a cell and disappear inside.  
“Oh, well now.” The warden leans in to whisper in Steven’s ear. “He got in the middle of a fight in one of the more… salacious casbahs in the city. Whatever the laws are in your part of the world, they don’t look too kindly on that kind of thing here.”  
Wilson gives him a sly wink, and Steven stares blankly at him. “Excuse me?”  
Wilson glances at Tony, who clears his throat. “Perverts, little brother.”  
Steven spins around to face him. “And you were-”  
“Just there to drink and play cards.” Tony holds up his hands. “Queers know how to mix a martini, what can I say?”  
Steven’s ears turn pink, and he ignores Tony’s wide grin in favour of the warden’s wry amusement at his expense.  
“You mean he’s a…” Steven’s pulse quickens. “He’s a deviant?”  
The warden shrugs. “Man said he was looking for a good time.”

The door bursts open, and two guards drag a prisoner in chains out into the harsh sun. His clothes are ragged and mud-stained, and his features obscured by a shock of dark, shoulder length hair that has seen neither soap nor comb in far too long. A guard shoves him up against the bars, the frame rattling with the impact, and Steve catches a glimpse of pale blue eyes behind the matted curtain of hair before the prisoner is dragged back again.  
Wilson shouts to the guards, who shove the man up against the bars again, holding his chains taut. Bruises litter his skin, and though Steven’s instinct is to feel disgust, there is also concern. No one should be treated this way, no matter what they have done.  
“This is the man you stole from?” Steven murmurs in Tony’s ear.  
“You see my point?” Tony says through gritted teeth, before walking up to peer at the prisoner through the bars. “Hello there.”  
The prisoner glances at him, then turns to get a better look at Steven. He tilts his head towards Tony, but it’s Steven he’s looking at. When he speaks his voice is a low rasp, and it sends an odd thrill down Steven’s spine.  
“Who’s the daffodil?”

Steven bristles, opening his mouth to let out every curse he can think of, and a few more besides, but a fight breaks out in one of the other cells, and the warden goes off to break it up. While Steven is sputtering on his own outrage, Tony sidles closer to the bars, keeping a wary eye on the remaining guards.  
“Hi again.” He gives the prisoner a wide, insincere smile. “You’re Barnes, right?”  
“Yes!” Barnes grasps the bar with a filthy, bruised hand. “Are you here about Al? Listen he’s a conniving little bastard but I want to see him right.”  
“Yeah, he sounds great,” Tony nods along, not really listening. “This is my brother, Stevie-”  
Steven hates that nickname. “Steven.”  
“Brother, huh?” Barnes’ fingers clench and loosen around the bar. In spite of his surroundings, his mouth ticks up. “Yeah, you’re practically twins. Are you here about Al?”  
“We’re not here about your _boyfriend_ ,” Steven interjects.  
“Oh, great,” Tony sighs.  
“We’re here about your ushabti,” Steven continues, undaunted by Barnes’ filthy smirk and bright eyes. “And wanted to ask you about it.”  
Barnes looks over at Tony, who backs away a step. “Found it! Didn’t steal it. Found it. Ask anyone.”  
“Mr Barnes.” Steven pushes his way between Tony and the bars. “Where did you find the ushabti? And that scrap of paper around it?”  
Barnes’ smile drops. “No.”  
“What do you mean, no?” Steven’s voice pitches up in indignation.  
Barnes presses his face to the bars, his voice dropping to a low growl. “You’re here about Thinis.”

Tony hears the name Thinis and ducks in to listen as Steven stares at Barnes in surprise. “You know about Thinis?”  
“Know it? I was there,” Barnes cuts himself off, taking another look at Tony. “Do I know you?”  
“No!” Tony recoils, taking a couple of steps back from the cell. “Never seen you before in my life.”  
“Were you really there?” Steven asks. “Do you swear?”  
“All the fucking time.” That grin is back, sharp and bright and dear gods Steven doesn’t like it.  
“No, I mean-”  
“I know what you mean,” Barnes hisses. “The lost city of the First Dynasty.”  
The warden shouts to them from across the courtyard, making his way back. Steven curses under his breath, there’s no time left.  
“Where is it?” he asks urgently. “Where is the city?”  
“You wanna know?” Barnes gestures for Steven to come close and he does, leaning in until his face is right up against the bars. His heart pounds in his chest, adrenaline and something hot and serpentine slithering in his guts.  
“Yes,” he breathes.  
Quick as lightning Barnes reaches between the bars and grabs him by the chin. His thumb digs into the hinge of Steven’s jaw, and his lips part in a startled gasp. He hasn’t a chance to draw in breath before Barnes kisses him.

Steven wouldn’t call himself experienced in the art of romance. Much like his many rejected job applications, his lack of experience in the field is something of a handicap.  
He can count the kisses of his life thus far on one hand, all of them pleasant enough but ultimately unsatisfactory. This kiss puts them all in the shade.  
Barnes is filthy and beaten and bruised, he is sly and crude and cunning, and Steven should despise him. But his lips are bittersweet and heated against Steven’s own. His tongue flickers between Steven’s parted lips, taunting and uninvited. The taste of it sends threads of static charge across Steven’s skin that makes him shudder and gasp.  
Before Steven has registered what has happened, hands grasping the bars to keep from pinwheeling, it is over. Barnes forces their mouths apart, fingers still digging into Steven’s chin.  
“Then get me the hell out of here!” Barnes snarls, before the guards grab hold of him and haul him away.  
Steven’s mind reels as he touches a hand to his mouth, feeling slick lips, an unfamiliar taste on his tongue.  
Wilson abandons his debate across the courtyard and runs over. He shouts at the guards dragging Barnes away.  
_He never told me where the city is_. Steven points after them. “Where are they taking him?”  
“To be hanged,” Wilson tells him grimly.  
“Ouch,” Tony says from a safe distance. “Guess he had a really good time.”

“Wait!” Steven yells, following Wilson through the maze of cell blocks to another courtyard. High balconies rise up into the sky on every side, with guards and prisoners alike hanging over the railings. They roar and yell and stamp their feet, creating a wall of noise that makes Steven’s teeth rattle.  
Wilson climbs up a set of steps to a seperate balcony, sitting down in a chair overlooking the courtyard. Steven follows him up the steps, but stops short at the sight of a gallows below.  
A terrible contraption of wood and rope, with a trapdoor in the middle of the platform and a knotted length of rope hanging above it. The pair of guards from earlier drag Barnes into the courtyard, kicking and struggling. The heels of his boots dig into the compacted dirt, leaving score marks in the sun baked earth. In the shadow of the gallows he stops fighting, dropping to the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. Steven’s stomach clenches, his heart thumping painfully against his ribs as the guards drag the now compliant man onto the platform.  
“Mr Wilson.” Steven can’t look away as they pull a noose around his neck. “I will give you one hundred pounds to let this man go free.”  
Wilson leans back in his seat. “I’d pay a hundred pounds to see him hang.”  
“Two hundred pounds!”  
Wilson waves a hand at the guard, who tightens the knot and gives Barnes a shove, moving him over the trapdoor.  
“Three hundred!” Steven shouts desperately. At Wilson’s order, the guard pulls a lever, and the trapdoor swings open, dropping Barnes like a stone.

The crowd falls silent, watching almost hungrily. Steven flinches as Barnes falls, the rope snapping taut. He swings back and forth, feet kicking out instinctively for purchase.  
Wilson shakes his head. “His neck didn’t break. Now we have to watch him strangle.”  
No one dares to speak, staring at the gallows in awful fascination. The only sound to be heard is Barnes, his hands scrabbling at his throat for precious breath, his body twisting in animal panic.  
“He knows the location of Thinis,” Steven utters softly, more to himself than anything. “I have his map.”  
“The lost city?” Wilson sits up. “You have a map to the lost city of Tjenu?”  
Tjenu. The warden calls it Tjenu and not Thinis. Steven sees a last thread of hope and reaches for it.  
“Yes! And if you cut him down I will give you ten percent of the takings.”  
Wilson studies him carefully. Down in the gallows Barnes has stopped kicking.  
“Twenty five percent, and I come with you.” Wilson’s counteroffer is bold, but there is no time to haggle.  
“Deal.”  
Wilson rises to his feet, gesturing to the guard. A sword is drawn and the rope severed, and Barnes drops to the dirt like a sack of rocks.  
The prisoners around them roar their approval, a cacophony that drowns out Barnes’ rasps for breath.  
He looks up with bloodshot eyes, as if he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and Steven meets his gaze, proud and defiant.  
Barnes groans loudly, turning his face to the sun.


	3. The Nile

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Why did you kiss me?” Steve asks, looking startled at himself for asking.  
>  _Because I thought you were the last beautiful thing I would see in this life._  
>  “I don’t know, I was about to be hanged.” Bucky shrugs. “Worth a shot.”

It’s been years since Bucky last ventured into Giza port, and little has changed in that time. The docks are still a hive of activity, with dockhands hauling crates and barrels of supplies up the steep ramps to the waiting riverboats and passenger barges. Would-be explorers and adventurers, fired up by the reports of Carter’s successes and their pockets filled with money to burn, mill back and forth in search of passage south to the Valley of the Kings. Along the boardwalk merchants and beggars fill every last inch of available space.  
Hawkers offer up carved basalt cat statues and sphinxes, and miniatures of the Great Pyramids that rise up into the sky behind them. Gangs of children run back and forth in search of unguarded wallets, and old men huddle in their rags, their thin limbs like bundles of sticks as they hold up their hands, begging for coin.  
It sets a quiet ache behind Bucky’s ribs to keep walking, to ignore their thin, reedy voices. But give a coin to one and you have to give a coin to all of them, swarming around you like locusts, their voices raised in desperation.  
On his shoulder Al yowls softly, digging his needle-like claws through the light wool of Bucky’s jacket.  
“Alright, alright,” Bucky murmurs, reaching up to scratch the white cat behind the ear. “Keep your fur on.”  
Al meows again, a soft, breathy _hrrrow_ , and Bucky adjusts his bag, the damn thing keeps slipping down from the weight of cat and canned sardines.  
“I don’t know,” he mutters absently. “They said to meet here.”  
The cat yowls again, unimpressed, and shoves his nose in Bucky’s ear. He recoils a little, giving the cat another scratch to quiet him down, and keeps walking.

There is a gang of Americans clustered around one of the gangplanks, a few of them dressed up as cowboys, though Bucky doubts they’ve ever seen actual cattle up close. They have six shooters hanging at their hips and greasy, slicked back hair. Their voices, loud and braying, carry across the docks. The ones not dressed up like Wild Bill Hickok are just as bad, wearing brand new pith helmets and khaki safari jackets. Bucky gives them a wide berth, but not so wide he doesn’t overhear them talking about their route; two days down the Nile and one on horseback.  
Bucky watches as their leader, an older man with blond hair and worn features, issues orders to a dockhand. The dockhand nods attentively before leading a pair of horses up onto their passenger barge.  
Three days by river, two by horse. They must be going the same direction as Bucky’s party. If he’s lucky they’ll be going on a different boat at least.  
Al yowls again, shifting around on Bucky’s shoulder, his tail thrashing.  
“Yeah,” Bucky murmurs softly. “I don’t like the look of them either.”  
Up ahead is another brand new pith helmet, the owner leaning against the open lid of a steamer trunk. There is something familiar about the set of their shoulders, so Bucky starts making his way over.  
“-definitely show up,” Pith Helmet says to their companion, who is rummaging through the open trunk and out of view. “He’s a man of his word.”  
Bucky is pretty sure it’s Stark, and his suspicions are confirmed when the lid of the trunk slams down to reveal Steven, holding a book.  
“Well _I_ think he’s filthy, rude, a complete scoundrel” Bucky sneaks up behind the pair unnoticed. “I don’t like him one bit.”  
“Anyone I know?” Bucky murmurs in Steven’s ear.  
Steven spins around, nearly smacking Bucky in the face with his book, and opens his mouth to say something offensive, and the words seem to dry up when he realises who it is.

In the four days since he left the prison Bucky has not stood idle. Not only has he bathed and shaved and bought a new suit for the journey, but he has also taken a comb and scissors to his scraggly hair. It is still longer than would be considered respectable, covering the nape of his neck and brushing his shoulders.  
Steven seems taken with the new look, at least that’s what Bucky guesses from the way his mouth opens and closes like an especially confounded fish. Bucky raises an eyebrow, not trying to hide his amusement.  
“Oh.” Steven says at last. “Hello.”  
Tony reaches out to shake Bucky’s hand. “Barnes!” he says, giving Steven a sideways glance. “Knew you’d make it. Who’s the… uh…”  
Tony keeps shaking his hand, looking at the cat perched on his shoulder.  
“This is Al,” Bucky tells him. “He scratches out the eyes of folks who go through my pockets.”  
“Hah!” Tony laughs unconvincingly. “That must come in… uh… handy.”  
“That’s Al?” Steven bursts out, and Bucky remembers his arch remark about a boyfriend back at the prison.  
The guy saved his neck, in more ways than one, so Bucky is willing to give him some leeway, if not his sticky-fingered brother.  
“Yeah.” Bucky nods as Al rises to his feet, arching his spine. “Think of him as my business partner.”  
“You’re seriously taking a cat on a boat?” Steven says doubtfully. “And on horseback across Egypt?”  
“Yup.”  
“A cat?”  
Okay, that’s enough leeway. “Listen here, Rogers. My whole damn garrison marched across Libya looking for some sort of lost city, and all we found was death and sand. I am not going within a hundred miles of that place without my buddy Al here. Understood?”  
Steven’s eyes get a little bit wider, but he nods, a sharp jerk of his chin. “Understood.”

His point made, Bucky turns to look at the passenger barge. Of course it’s the same one the cowboys are boarding, just his damn luck. He watches the last of them climbing the gangplank, that old guy herding them like bleating goats, and spots someone all too familiar making his way through the crowd towards them.  
“Son of a-” Bucky hisses.  
The warden from the prison saunters over to them, instantly recognisable by the tattoo over his eye. He is dressed in the black robes of the Tuareg, and has a pack slung over his shoulder. He gives Steven a bright, gap-toothed smile. “Mr Rogers!” he calls out. “There you are.”  
Bucky turns back to Steven. “You invited the warden?” he glowers. “The man who tried to hang me?”  
“No hard feelings, right?” Wilson says to Bucky, before offering Tony his hand. After a confused moment Tony shakes it.  
“Nah,” Bucky snarls, because yes, there are a lot of hard feelings. “None at all.”  
“Mr Wilson.” Steven gives him a puzzled smile. “What are you doing here?”  
“Call me Sam.” Wilson hefts his pack up his shoulder. “I’m here to protect my investment.”  
“Your investment?” Steven parrots back at him.  
“Did you think you could just go chasing off in search of a fabled lost city without me?” he asks, and points to the passenger barge. “See you on deck.”  
Sam bows his head, the picture of courtesy, and heads up the gangplank in search of his berth. 

“Well this interesting,” Tony says after the stunned silence has dragged on a while  
“Barnes,” Steven says, voice lowered. “I didn’t-”  
“Yeah, I get that,” Bucky sighs, and Al settles back down on his shoulder, tail curling around his neck like a scarf. “I’ll take care of the luggage.”  
Without another word he grabs the handle of the trunk, and pulls it over to the gangplank with ease.  
Tony’s voice rises through the crowds, sharp as a pin. “Yes, a complete scoundrel, nothing to _ooof_.”  
Bucky glances back to see Tony doubled over, rubbing at his side. Steven isn’t looking at his brother, his gaze is on Barnes’ retreating form, something wistful in his expression. Bucky winks at him, and gets a scowl in return.

***

Bucky has never liked standing still for too long, and being cooped up in his berth reminds him far too much of the last cell he was in. So the accommodations are far more luxurious, but then a hole in the ground would be more luxurious too. He’d be able to see the sun for one thing.  
Al doesn’t take too kindly to confinement either, and they spend the day pacing up and down on deck, getting familiar with their surroundings. Al, the harlot, ingratiates himself with the kitchen staff, who call him _Bisbis_ and indulge him with scraps of chicken and crumbs of fresh cheese on the understanding that he will rid the barge of any rats.  
Bucky lets him wander for now. The people of Giza hold cats in high regard, considering it bad luck to kill one, and any man who does will be visited upon by Bastet herself and beaten with sticks. The further south they travel the more watchful he’ll have to be, lest someone desperate for the taste of fresh meat try to make off with him.  
By sunset he’s had enough of smoky, dimly lit cabins and decides to go out on deck where it’s cooler and less crowded. That means passing through the bar, where most of the passengers have settled in around the tables to drink and gamble the voyage away. He pulls a large cloth-wrapped bundle out of his pack and heads out in search of fresh air.

There’s no sign of the warden at any of the gambling tables, not that Bucky is looking out for him. He does end up walking past Stark sat at a table with, no surprises here, two of the cowboys from the boardwalk and their boss. Whatever hopes Bucky had of slipping past unnoticed are dashed by Stark waving and calling him over.  
“Barnes.” He sounds tipsy but not falling-over drunk, so there’s a slight chance Bucky won’t be fishing him out of the Nile in a few hours. “Sit down, we could use another player.” He points to each cowboy in turn. “This is Rumlow and Rollins and…” he pauses at their boss, and Bucky gets the sense he knows exactly what the guys name is, and just wants to get under his skin.  
“Pierce,” the man says after a second too long. “Alexander Pierce.”  
He gives Bucky a smile that seems warm on the surface, but there is something brittle about his eyes.  
“No thank you.” Bucky’s returning smile is equally false. “I only gamble with my life.”  
“Never?” Rollins, or is it Rumlow, asks with a sly look. “What about five hundred bucks says we get to Thinis before you do?”  
Bucky plays dumb. “Who said anything about going to Thinis?”  
The pair of them point to Tony, their voices raised in chorus. “He did.”  
_Well fuck, so much for secrecy._  
Tony takes a sudden, vested interest in his hand of cards while Bucky scowls at him.  
“You seem pretty confident,” Bucky says, walking over to stand behind Tony. “What makes you so sure you’ll find it at all?”  
Probably Rollins, his hair greased back, leers at Bucky. “We got a guys who’s already been there.”  
Bucky’s smile drops. He’s so blindsided he barely catches Tony leaning forward eagerly.  
“Well what a coincidence, so have-” Bucky kicks Tony’s chair and he stifles a yelp, recovering quickly and draining his martini glass. “Well look at that, I need a drink.”  
He waves the empty glass at a waiter, making enough noise that Bucky can skulk away unnoticed at least.  
Not that unnoticed, when he glances back he sees Pierce watching him, slowly raising his whisky glass in greeting. Bucky ignores him and goes outside.

The fresh air goes some way to clearing Bucky’s head, and the view isn’t too shabby either. It’s a clear night, the heavens scattered with stars, and he finds himself seeking out familiar patterns; Hercules brandishing his sword and the Great Bear prowling across the infinite. Even with the banks of the Nile densely lined with trees and reeds he can see the inky outline of the Pyramids, and Orion standing over them.  
Bucky breathes in deeply, ignoring the high whine of insects after his blood, and wonders where the hell his cat has gotten to.  
The deck is well lit, with strings of lanterns hanging from the rails and rigging. He finds Al after a few minutes, and Steven along with him. They’re both occupying a chair set out overlooking the river. Al is curled up in Steven’s lap while he absently strokes the cat’s soft fur, his other hand holding up a book to catch the lantern light. On the table beside him is a stack of more books, on Ancient Egypt mostly, and a plate with a half-eaten sandwich lying on it. If it was chicken that would explain Al’s presence.  
“Hey,” Bucky says quietly, and puts the bundle on the table.  
Steven flinches, enough to make Al rumble in complaint and flex his claws. Instead of yelling and shoving the cat off his lap, Steven reaches down and gently extricates the claws from his pant leg, before giving the cat a scratch behind the ears.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbles. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”  
Steven gives him a dour look. “The only thing that scares me about you Mr Barnes are your manners.”  
Oh, this expedition is going to be _fun_.  
“So. You still mad about that whole…” Bucky gestures between them. Steven doesn’t answer, returning to his book with an irritated snort.  
Bucky lets the matter drop, and unties the straps on his bundle before rolling it out across the table. Steven lets out a startled little sound at the sight of the roll unfurling, revealing over a dozen little straps and holders and pouches filled with all manner of weaponry.  
If Bucky needs a short blade there is a Bowie knife, a pair of trench knives, and a pitted little push knife to hand, each one sharp and well cared for. If he needs firepower there is a pair of Chamelot-Delvigne revolvers, older than he is but they’ve gotten him out of a few scrapes. Lastly there is a Colt that survived his last visit to Thinis, and he brings it for luck more than anything. Back in his room there’s a Winchester shotgun under the bed. The rest of the roll is taken up with sticks of dynamite, carefully wrapped, and a few tins of sardines, looking incongruous amid the armoury.  
Bucky unwraps his cleaning kit, then picks up the Colt and checks the chamber is empty before stripping it down.

Steven doesn’t say a word, but his silence is a weighted, ominous thing, like a drop in air pressure, like the swell of dark clouds on the horizon that warn of a thunderstorm.  
Maybe Bucky is being too loud as he takes the gun apart? But sand gets in everything and the last thing he needs is a firing pin jamming. He glances up to see Steven staring at him, not exactly in horror but certainly not happy.  
“What?”  
“Is all that really necessary?” he asks, and Bucky has a sudden urge to invite Steven back to his room to look at the shotgun. “Are we going into war?”  
“Yup,” Bucky shakes off the urge. It wouldn’t be well received, and he’s not in the mood to get yelled at. “Last time I was out there…” Bucky stops, remembering the churning sand rising up in a wall before him. “Two hundred of us went into the city, and six crawled out. There’s something out there, under the sand.”  
“And what might that be?” Steven looks unconvinced.  
“Evil.”  
Steven sits back, regarding Bucky like he’s some sort of village idiot. “I don’t believe in fairy tales or any of that nonsense, Mr Barnes,” he says primly. “There’s nothing evil about sand.”  
Bucky shrugs, reassembling the Colt. “Well, let’s see what you think when you get there.”  
Steven snorts again, picking Al up and getting to his feet. He puts the cat back in the seat and scoops up his books, getting ready to leave since Bucky won’t agree with him. Bucky half expects a few cutting remarks before he goes running off, but instead Steven hesitates.  
“Why did you kiss me?” he asks, looking startled at himself for asking.  
_Because I thought you were the last beautiful thing I would see in this life._  
“I don’t know, I was about to be hanged.” Bucky shrugs. “Worth a shot.”  
Steven’s mouth opens, his ears turning pink. Too angry to yell and too civil to throw a punch, he storms off instead. 

Bucky watches him bluster into the barge, and quells his disappointment with the abandoned sandwich. He picks out a piece of chicken and holds it out to Al, who wakes up long enough to gulp it down before curling back up into a fluffy white ball and going to sleep.  
As Bucky chews on a stale corner of sandwich, and hears a muffled snigger from behind him.  
“You never did have much luck on that front, did ya Barnes?”  
Bucky drops the sandwich back on the plate, his appetite gone, and turns around.  
“Gilmore fucking Hodge,” he sighs. “Why aren’t you dead yet?”  
He hasn’t seen Hodge since Thinis, though Falsworth had mentioned seeing him around Cairo once or twice. They had collectively agreed that anyone who got within swinging range should punch the guy’s lights out.  
“Guess I’m just lucky,” Hodge sneers.  
It doesn’t take long to put two and two together. “You’re the one leading the cowboys?”  
“Well, ain’t you smart.” Hodge shoves his thumbs in his front pockets, rocking back on his heels. “Figuring that out all by yerself.”  
“So what’s the scam?” Bucky moves away from the table, towards Hodge, keeping his voice low and conspiratorial. “Take them out to the middle of the desert, then leave them to rot?”  
“Not this time,” Hodge shrugs. “Half now, half when we get back. Gotta go all the way.”  
It had been a stab in the dark, and Bucky is disgusted at his own accuracy, but does his best to hide it. Meanwhile Hodges gives him the once over. “What about you?” he says. “Figured nothing on earth would get you back out there.”  
Bucky glances back at the table and chair, so recently vacated. “I owe someone.”  
“Oh, I get it.” Hodge’s smile widens. “You planning on getting yourself a little bi-”  
Bucky doesn’t give him a chance to finish, throwing a roundhouse punch and sending the guy spinning on his heels. He staggers against the railing, and Bucky grabs hold of the back of his jacket, tipping him over the side and into the Nile.  
The splash is deeply gratifying, and Bucky looks over the rail to see Hodges thrashing about in the swift-running water. He gives the bastard a smart little salute, and gets called a number of inaccurate things, until Hodges swallows too much of the Nile and his insults give way to a hacking cough.  
Promise fulfilled, Bucky shakes out his hand, his knuckles sore. The day hasn’t been a total loss.  
He goes to retrieve his cache of weapons and indolent cat, and only then realises that he can smell smoke.

*

“Steven!” Bucky hammers on the door to his berth again, wincing as Al digs four sets of claws into his shoulder, the smell of smoke making him skittish. “Steven, open this goddamn door!”  
He’s already tracked down Tony, half cut and merrily losing his money, and sent him off to grab whatever supplies he can carry. But the sot had no idea where his brother was, which leaves finding him up to Bucky.  
With the alarm raised the barge is in chaos, deckhands rushing to try and put the numerous fires that have spontaneously erupted around the ship while the passengers flap about in a panic.  
Bucky can hear the horses in the paddock up on deck crashing about and whinnying, panicked by the smoke, and hopes to hell someone lets them out. He has enough to deal with.  
“Steven!” Bucky batters on the door again. He wasn’t in the bar, or on deck, where the hell could he have gotten to? He takes a step back, preparing to shoulder the door open, and launches himself at the same moment Steven opens the door, bleary-eyed and annoyed.  
“What the-”  
Bucky runs into him, sending them both crashing to the floor. Al leaps to safety with a yowl, darting into the room and onto the rumpled bed. Bucky manages to throw out both hands to brace himself against the wooden floor, but ends up sprawled over Steven, knocked flat on his back, and pinning him to the floor. Steven stares up at him, glasses askew, eyes wide, his breath hitching.  
It’s not the _worst_ place in the world to be, in fact certain parts of Bucky's anatomy are delighted about it all. But give it, say, eight seconds for that dazed look on Steven’s face to pass and the blush riding up his throat to fade, and it will be absolute hell.

“We gotta go,” Bucky announces, scrambling to his feet before Steven can punch him. “Grab only what you need.”  
Steven is still dressed but lying on the floor in socked feet, he must have slipped off his shoes before lying down on the bed to read, an open book lying on the bedside table next to a lamp. Bucky grabs the shoes and slides them across the floor towards him as Steven sits up, slow and still a little shaken.  
“C’mon, move!”  
While Steven pulls his boots on Bucky scans the room. Damn the man but he doesn’t travel light. That steamer trunk must be loaded down with books, and even if he did manage to haul it out before being burnt to a cinder, it would sink to the bottom of the Nile like a stone.  
He grabs Steven’s coat and thrusts it at him. “Okay, go!”  
“What the-” Steven comes to his senses, and digs in his heels. “What’s going on? I can smell burning.”  
“That’s the ship.” Bucky grabs his wrist and hauls him out of the cabin. 

Smoke, thick and choking, fills the air, and Bucky shoves his way through the panicked mass of people as fights break out over the abandoned card games. His weapon sack bounces against his back, while Al is bundled up in his buttoned-up jacket, pointed white face tucked in his armpit, and Bucky shoves anyone who comes near out of the way with his free hand.  
“Tony!” Steven calls out.  
“Already on it,” Bucky shouts back, and drags him out onto the deck. The horses are still neighing and thrashing; no one has cut them loose, and Steven turns towards the sound, alarmed.  
“They’ll burn,” he utters softly.  
“No they won’t,” Bucky pulls him over to the rail. “Can you swim?”  
“Well, yes?” For a smart man Steven is slow to catch on. “In summer we used to-”  
Bucky points out across the water. “That way, it’s about a mile, can you manage that?”  
Steven stares out at the inky water, and slowly nods.  
“Good.” One less thing to worry about. “You gonna jump or do I have to throw you?”  
Steven gives him a sharp look, then slowly climbs over the railing, bracing himself. “The horses,” he says, almost hopeful.  
“On it.”  
Something passes over Steven’s features, but the smoke is too thick and the light to frenetic to make it out. He dives into the water like an arrow, barely making a splash.

The horses are less trouble than Steven, at least. Bucky has to dig a revolver out of his sack and shoot off the lock, Al clawing his ribs at the sound of a gunshot, before he can open up the paddock gate.  
Horses are strong swimmers, once they get the hang of it, and the Nile is not a deep river, maybe ten meters at most. He drives them over to the railing, kicking down the carved wooden spurs, and sends them into the water. They kick and whinny but strike out for shore, and Bucky curses under his breath when he realises they’re headed in the opposite direction to Steven.  
Horses taken care of, that leaves Tony. At least Bucky has a good idea where he’ll be, and heads back to the bar. By the time he gets there, the fire has already spread, flames rolling across the polished floorboards like oceans waves, tables and chairs collapsing into the flames like sinking ships.  
Tony is behind the bar, stuffing bottles of whisky into a satchel, and batting at the flames licking across the bar, the lacquered wood blistering. The damned idiot isn’t even in a hurry, taking time to read the labels before deciding on whether or not to take it.  
“God, I hate being right,” Bucky coughs. “Tony!”  
Tony glances up and raises a fresh bottle. “Barnes!” He uncorks the bottle and takes a deep sniff. “You ever tried Talisker?”  
Bucky mumbles a half-hearted curse, grabbing him by the collar and hauling him out onto the deck. He doesn’t talk the sot through what’s happening like he did with Steven, just yells “Swim!” and pitches him over the side.  
Tony yelps, sinking like a stone, and after a few seconds reemerges, the satchel missing but the Talisker still in hand.  
“Swim!” Bucky yells again, and climbs over the railing, slowly lowering himself into the water.  
Chunks of burnt wood float past, the water gritty with cinder, and Bucky unfastens his jacket, letting Al free to swim. The cat yowls, outraged, and treads water while Bucky points Tony in the right direction and starts to swim. He manages about two strokes before he feels claws dig into his leg, the cat climbing onto his back and shaking himself off.  
Slowly, keeping a close eye on Tony doggy-paddling beside him, they make their way to shore.

Al is the first onto shore, leaping onto a path beaten through the reeds and onto the shore beside Steven. Apparently only cats and Rogers can climb elegantly onto dry land, and Bucky gets tangled up in weeds.  
He lumbers onto solid ground, caked in mud up to his knees, and falls face down in the dirt. Al sits on the bank where Steven is sprawled, and starts washing his paws.  
“We… we lost everything,” Steven gestures to the barge as it crumples in on itself, flames licking up into the night sky. “All our clothes, our books.” He looks horrified. “My first editions!”  
Tony crawls through the reeds, holding his bottle aloft in triumph. “Aw, Stevie, it’s not a total loss.” He pulls out the cork and swallows a mouthful, before spitting it out. “Is this supposed to taste like dirt?”  
The reeds part a little to the south of them, and Wilson steps out.  
“You’re alive,” he says, and maybe Bucky is reading too much into things, but he doesn’t sound overjoyed, not does he look particularly troubled by almost burning and drowning.  
“Sam!” Steven sits up, looking relieved to see him. “What happened? I didn’t see you on deck, I-”  
“Arson,” Bucky spits, rolling onto his back. “Fires set all over the boat.” He gives Wilson a pointed look. “Someone wanted us out of the picture.”  
“Or on a wooden boat full of oil lamps and drunks, a disaster was bound to happen,” Steven points out  
Bucky huffs, wrenching his sodden weapon sack off and throwing it onto the reeds. Al lets out a little chirp, and trots over to lick his cheek.  
“Yeah, pal,” Bucky sighs, scratching the cat’s ear. “I’m glad you’re still alive too.”  
He watches the barge sink into the Nile, smoke and embers rising up into the night like fireflies.


	4. Beni Suef

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam watches Steve enthuse, a solemn look on his face. “It was built on sand,” he says quietly. “And doomed to failure.”  
> “Failure?”  
> Sam reaches out to grasp Steven’s arm. “The desert will kill you,” he hisses.  
> “What?”  
> “You seem a good man,” Sam continues, his grip on Steven’s arm tightening. “Abandon this foolhardy quest and return to Cairo while you still can.”

Beni Suef is not the nearest trading post, but Barnes insists they go there and Steven is too tired and rattled to argue. At least the blasted man lets them rest until morning first, and doesn’t send them all on a doomed march in the dark. Steven would have taken a wrong step and ended up back in the Nile for sure.  
They had sprawled out on the reeds while Barnes’ cat went scampering in search of river rats, until the first hint of light touched the horizon. Then Barnes was up and chivvying them all into action, damn him, marching single file south along the river.  
Steven’s clothes are soaked in Nile water, weighing him down, and his boots are sodden, squelching mud with every step. The only thing heavier than his waterlogged jacket is his heart. His luggage trunk is somewhere at the bottom of the Nile. All his clothes, all his tools, all his _books_ , lost forever.  
There had been first editions in that trunk. There had been a copy of Egyptian Mythology by Samuel Sharpe printed in 1863 that he had unofficially borrowed from the Museum, a terrible book but still, if anyone finds out he’ll be-  
“Are you still pining for your damn books?” Tony nudges his shoulder, and Steven flinches away. “You can buy more when we get back.” He takes a sip from a hip flask, bottle of Talisker still tucked under his arm. “Not that you’re short of them.”  
“It’s not just the books!” Steven snaps, slipping on a root and throwing his arms up. Barnes grabs hold of his elbow, gently righting him, and moves him up the bank a little to where the mud is baked to a solid crust.

Steven hadn’t noticed that Barnes was nearby until that moment, and the touch of his hand, even through layers of sodden wool and linen, sets his heart stumbling. He shakes himself, feeling like an idiot, and mutters a crisp little “Thank you,” before stalking on.  
Barnes lets him, dropping back to check on his cat, milling back and forth between the ragged group; Steven taking the lead and Wilson remaining at the rear, pondering whatever things prison wardens ponder.  
Tony, who has an affinity for disaster and always seems to wander out the other side unscathed, is unperturbed. He has a plentiful supply of whisky, and is mid-adventure, so Steven can only assume that the day is going brilliantly for him, and he’s already revising events for when he retells it in the next casbah. There will probably be a shootout in his version.  
“It’s not just the books,” Steven says, a little more quietly. “I lost my tools.”  
Tony picks up his pace until he’s walking alongside, and holds out the hip flask. After a moment of hesitation Steven takes it, and indulges in a hefty swig before handing it back.  
“Onwards and upwards, kid,” Tony says as Steven wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.  
“Are all adventures like this?” Steven asks, and Tony slaps him on the back.  
“No, nothing like this.” Steven brightens up a little. “Usually at this point I’ve been punched in the face twice, or woken up buck-naked in a back alley somewhere.”  
“Tony…”  
“Cheer up!” Tony slaps him again. “You’ve still got your clothes on.” He glances back at Barnes, and then leans in to Steven’s ear. “Although, you play your cards right-”

Later Steven will insist it was an accident., that Tony was drunk and lost his footing. Once Barnes and Wilson have hauled Tony out of the Nile, spluttering and scrambling for his whisky, he agrees, giving Steven an exaggerated wink. Damn him.

*

When they come in sight Beni Suef the sun has climbed up past the horizon, and their clothes begin to dry off as the temperature rises. Steven tugs at the sleeves of his jacket, stiff and uncomfortable. Though the sun has dried out the back and cuffs of the damn thing, under the arms are still decidedly damp, and he has no intentions of walking around with his hands in the air until they dried off. But if he takes off the jacket that leaves him in a damp, clinging white shirt, and Tony will start looking at Barnes and doing that thing with his eyebrows. And Steven would rather not have to punch his brother in the face just yet.  
To Steven’s surprise Beni Suef is not a trading post but a thriving town producing cotton and linen. Barnes leads them through the busy streets, occasionally taking Steven’s elbow and leading him away from interesting examples of architecture and towards the marketplace.  
There are some schools of thought that suggest if something causes an adverse reaction, one should expose themselves to it until they are inured to its effects. Steven wonders if he were too keep walking off, if Barnes has to keep taking hold of him and towing him back on track, then maybe his skin wouldn’t prickle so when he does. Maybe that hot-and-cold sensation that shivers up his spine whenever Barnes touches him would fade.  
And would he want that to happen?

The reason for trekking all the way to this patch of Egypt becomes clear when they eventually reach the marketplace. Barnes strides ahead, all confidence and easy grace despite the dried mud clinging to his pants, shouting something… French?  
A rangy little fellow comes bursting out of one of the tents and barrels straight into Barnes. Wilson hisses under his breath, reaching for what must be a weapon hidden under his robes as Barnes stumbles backwards. But he’s laughing, eyes bright, as the man slaps him on the cheek and grabs his chin, a scatter-gun of curses and endearments fired around the galouise between his lips.  
Another figure comes out of the tent, a burly, brown-skinned man with his arms spread wide.  
“Bucky!” he shouts, and joins in the efforts to knock Barnes on his back.  
“Uh.” Tony tilts his head back. “What the hell is a Bucky?”  
Steven frowns at the three of them rough housing, the Frenchman abandoning Barnes in favour of Al, who gets scooped up and cradled like a baby. Al tolerates the gentle crooning of French lullabies with the resigned dignity of one who knows exactly where the next meal is coming from.

Barnes, one arm slung over the shoulder of his friend, waves Steven and Tony over.  
“This is Gabriel Jones.” Bucky makes the introductions. “And the one manhandling my cat is Jacques Dernier.” He nods to Wilson, starting to say something and then thinking better of it. “The one with the business on his eye is Sam Wilson. Then there’s the leader of this nonsense.” He gestures to Steven. “Steven Rogers, and the souse is his brother Tony.”  
“Stark,” Tony adds, holding out his hand. “Please tell me you have gin.”  
Gabe grins. “You got money?”  
Tony bristles, running his hands through his hair. “If you gotta be vulgar about it. Yes, I have money.”  
Gabe grins wider. “Then we’ve got everything you need.”  
He slips out from under Barnes’ arm, and leads Tony to the tent, leaving Steven kicking his heels.  
“Old friends?” Steven asks, a little more archly than is fair.  
“Yup.” It’s like water off a duck’s back to Barnes. “We served together.”  
Steven blinks, surprised. “Served? You were in the army?”  
“French Foreign Legion,” Bucky replies as Dernier wanders over, squishing Al’s paws one by one.  
“He was in the French Foreign Legion?” Steven looks at Dernier incredulously.  
“Je suis Canadien,” Dernier tells him with a wink, and leads them to the tent, out of the heat of the sun.

While Al stuffs his face with canned tuna, the rest of them are given flatbread and coffee. The coffee is tooth-achingly sweet and boiled up in a thin copper pot, the fine grounds catching in Steven’s teeth. The bread comes with some kind of mashed beans, cold and pungent with cumin. Steven is too hungry to be picky, and takes the offered bowl gratefully. He waits until Sam starts eating, tearing off pieces of bread and using it to scoop up the paste, before trying it himself. It’s surprisingly good, starchy and filling, and by the time Jones refills his tiny coffee cup he feels halfway to human again.  
Tony barely touches his food, haranguing Jones for more coffee instead, and only grudgingly eats a little bread when Steven elbows him.  
Barnes talks while he eats, like a goddamn pig, while he and his war buddies play catch up. Names and places fly over Steven’s head, though Sam listens intently. When the story of the expedition to Thinis comes up, Tony finally takes an interest, waving his empty coffee cup at Jones and regaling them with an embellished version of the events of the night before.  
Steven half expects Barnes to start questioning Sam on his whereabouts through it all, or correct Tony when the story veers towards outlandish. But he leans back against a cushion, a sated Al climbing into his lap, and smiles at the tale of cowboys and gunfights and insults shouted across the Nile.

Steven can’t claim to know Barnes as a person, not really. But the man sitting across from him, smiling along as Tony spins his yarn, seems a world away from the filthy, crass degenerate he saw in the prison. When he laughs his eyes crinkle up in a manner that is most distracting, and if Steven had his notebook and a pencil, he might be compelled to make a sketch of him.  
But his books and pens are at the bottom of the Nile, along with his tool kit. His _fathers_ tool kit. Steven’s good mood evaporates, unlike the damp still clinging to his clothes, and he excuses himself for some fresh air.  
Sam elects to go with him, though Steven has no need of a chaperone, he just needs to be somewhere Barnes isn’t for a little while.  
They take a walk around the market, and with a little assistance from Sam, Steven is able to find a new notebook and set of pencils. He haggles over the price in stilted Arabic, while Sam laughs good-naturedly.  
In truth Steven enjoys the art of haggling, the performance of it all, questioning the quality and worth of an item while the merchant sweet talks. He used to be much worse at it in his youth, gaping in horror as his brother lied through his teeth to get a discount. He was not short of money, the inheritance from his parents more than these people would see in a lifetime, and to cheat them of a few coins that he could easily spare felt like the worst insult. But haggling is a game, a tradition, and to refuse would be a greater insult.  
And it is not his place to tell others how to live.

“You could have paid half for that,” Sam murmurs as Steven hands over a few coins for a canvas satchel.  
“I could have,” Steven nods, putting his book and pencils inside and looping the strap over his shoulder. Tony would have paid a quarter. But Steven was well practiced, and was fluent in Arabic. The merchant would count his coins later and think he had done well with the fumbling tourist, and no harm would come of it.  
Sam watches him fiddle with his strap, and points to the north. “Have you seen the Meidum?”  
Steven shakes his head and Sam starts walking, leading him through the streets as though it were his home town.  
“You’ve been here before?” Steven asks, and maybe he should be wary about being led away from the marketplace.  
“I was not born in Cairo,” Sam smiles, pressing his tongue against the gap between his front teeth.  
“Where were you born?” Steven asks. _How did you end up a warden in Cairo prison?_  
Sam doesn’t answer, instead pointing out to a field on the edge of town, a swathe of dense green dotted with date palms. Beyond lies the desert, dun coloured dunes rising up in waves to the base of a mountain.

Steven shields his eyes with his hand. Whatever he’s seeing is not a mountain, it’s stepped sides are far too straight.  
“What is that?” he mutters. “Some kind of ziggurat?”  
“A mastaba,” Sam replies. “A house of eternal rest.”  
“It’s a pyramid?” The four-sided walls rise up to a plateau, a much shallower level atop it. On top of that is what remains of a third level, eroded away by the desert winds. “I’ve seen the Pyramid of Djoser in Saqqara, built by the advisor Imhotep, but it looks nothing like this. That had evenly sized mastabas stacked one on top of the other.”  
Sam watches him enthuse, a solemn look on his face. “It was built on sand,” he says quietly. “And doomed to failure.”  
“Failure?”  
Sam reaches out to grasp Steven’s arm. “The desert will kill you,” he hisses.  
“What?”  
“You seem a good man,” Sam continues, his grip on Steven’s arm tightening. “Abandon this foolhardy quest and return to Cairo while you still can.”  
Despite the sun beating down on them, Steven shivers. “We should be getting back,” he says quickly, twisting his arm out of Sam’s grip. His hold tightens for an instant, but suddenly lets go.  
Steven moves away from him slowly, putting his back to the crumbling ruin. “The others will be wondering where we’ve gotten to.”  
He doesn’t wait for Sam to reply, walking quickly back into town, back straight and head held high. He’ll be damned before he scampers like a frightened mouse.  
A few moments later Sam rejoins him, quiet and reserved. He does not speak of doomed expeditions again.

*

By the time Steven and Sam reach the market, it’s clear Barnes hasn’t been sitting idle in their absence. Four old but sprightly camels are tied to a post a little way from the tent, and Steven wanders over to get a closer look at them. Tony doesn’t care much for camels, but Steven is fascinated by them. He reaches out to pat one on the nose.  
“Careful!”  
Steven flinches away. Damn Barnes, sneaking up on him again. He turns to see Barnes sauntering over, bundle tucked under his arm. He’s wearing a change of clothes, his wool suit exchanged for a rumpled linen shirt and khakis.  
“They bite,” Bucky says by way of explanation, and as if to prove his point a camel snaps at the air just short of Steven’s fingers.  
“Hey!” Steven scolds it. “Less of that, thank you.”  
Barnes watches him try to reason with the beast with a smile, squinting in the sunlight. “Wondered where you’d got to.”  
Steven considers telling him about Sam’s warning. For about quarter of a second. There’s no shortage of animosity between those two, no matter how civil Barnes is right now, and Steven wasn’t going to pour oil on those flames.  
“I needed some books,” he says instead, tapping at his satchel. It’s not a lie, exactly.  
“Uh-huh.” Barnes doesn’t look convinced. “You seen the pyramid?”  
“Ah.” _Damnit_. “Yes.”  
Barnes looks almost disappointed, which makes no sense. He shrugs, like it’s no big deal, and takes the bundle from under his arm, holding it out.  
“Here,” he says, twitching the bundle to encourage Steven to take it. “You said you lost your tools so… So I…”

Steven takes the roll of canvas, unfastening the buckle and strap that holds it closed and opening it out. Barnes fidgets the whole time, like he can’t decide between crossing his arms or resting his hands on his hips.  
It’s a tool kit. A length of canvas folded and sewn to make compartments, each one filled with an archeologists tools. Trowels and brushes, neat and well-maintained, are lined up alongside delicate little hooks and picks. Last of all there is a small mallet and pickaxe.  
“You said you lost your old kit,” Barnes says when Steven is too floored to speak. “Can you manage with this one?”  
“Manage?” Steven murmurs. “This is…” He looks up at Barnes, who is twisting a strand of hair around his finger. He looks so much like his damn cat, dropping half a rat at Steven’s feet and then washing himself with studied indifference. “It’s perfect. Thank you.”  
Barnes smiles at him, eyes crinkling, and then pulls himself together, clearing his throat. “So-”  
“My old kit belonged to my father,” Steven says suddenly. “It was one of the few things I had left of him.”  
Barnes sobers immediately. “I’m sorry.”  
Usually Steven hates hearing ‘I’m sorry’. Sorry won’t bring them back, won’t change what happened. But for some reason he doesn’t mind so much this time.  
“It was a long time ago,” Steven says briskly. “And the Starks were kind enough to take me in.”  
Why is he telling Barnes all this? Why is it so important that he knows?  
“Anyway,” Steven says firmly, rolling up the kit. “Are we ready to get moving?”  
Barnes nods, taking his lead. “Ready when you are.”

*

With their supplies loaded onto the camels and the midday sun beating down on them, Steven turns down the offer from Jones to stay for lunch. There is still a way to go, and he is keenly aware of Pierce and his gang of cowboys with their sights set on the lost city.  
Jones is gracious in the face of refusal, and provides them with food for the journey; little fried ta'ameya wrapped in flatbreads. From what he can gather it’s what they ate for breakfast, mashed beans and bread, but Steven thanks him profusely.  
Dernier wanders around the camels, Al bundled in his arms, while Barnes offers Steven a hand onto his camel. Steven refuses, more out of habit than anything, but Barnes doesn’t seem to take offence, backing off immediately and mounting his own camel.  
It takes Steven more attempts than he’s proud of to mount up, the beast lying like a cat in the sun, it’s legs tucked under it. Climbing on is easy enough, and much like climbing onto a warm, prickly, musty-smelling couch. Then the camel unfurls its outlandishly long legs, with its knees all over the place, and suddenly Steven is flying through the air.  
“Lean back as it rises,” Sam calls from his own camel.  
Steven swears under his breath, shaking sand out of his hair, and stalks back to where the camel is lying in the dirt again. What manner of creature gets up ass first?  
He climbs on a second time, and when he feels the camel start to rise up throws himself backwards, digging his knees into the creatures sides. He stays on by luck rather than design, and the camel lets out a low, yawning groan, pacing impatiently.  
Barnes watches him, and though he looks amused there is no malice in his smile. “Alright, we’re going.” He gestures to Dernier. “Give me my damn cat.”  
Dernier makes a show of refusing, but hands Al over with a few soft words that Steven doesn’t catch. The cat curls up against Barnes, and the two men clasp each other's forearms in some private ritual before Dernier departs. Tony waves a fresh bottle of gin in farewell as Barnes leads them south out of the town, towards the desert.

The company fall into silence as Barnes leads them to a well-worn track that follows the Nile. The cooler air blowing over from the water offers a little respite from the sun, but Steven finds himself wiping sweat from his eyes before long. Tony, who has obtained a new pith helmet from somewhere, dozes sat upright, catching up on his lost sleep despite all the Turkish coffee. Steven should sleep a little too, but the coffee jitters through his veins, mixing with Sam’s ominous words.  
And Barnes is riding just ahead of him, wakeful and alert, his cat sprawled across his lap. His linen shirt is pulled taut across his shoulders as he twitches at his reins, and Steven finds it hard not to stare.  
“You should rest.” Steven bites back a yelp as Sam pulls up alongside him. Damn these sneaks and miscreants. “Like your brother,” Sam adds by way of explanation.  
“Oh.” Steven glances at Sam, wondering not for the first time how he can stand to wear so much clothing in this heat. “I’m not tired, but thank you.”  
“We will not be stopping to make camp,” Sam warns. “Barnes intends to push on until dawn to reach the city in time.”  
Steven frowns. “In time for what?” he asks, but Sam doesn’t answer, his eyes on the road ahead.

In spite of his protests, Steven finds his eyelids getting heavy. He wipes the sweat from his brow, blinking hard a few times, and tries to focus on the road ahead. His vision blurs again, and he thinks that maybe if he closes them for a few moments, just to rest his eyes a little, he’ll be fine.  
He screws his eyes shut and counts to five, and opens them again. The sand dunes look oddly out of focus, so he closes his eyes again.  
“Careful,” Barnes murmurs, and Steven feels the press of a hand against his shoulder.  
He feels strange, his thoughts fogged and his eyes sore, and his eyes must still be closed because why else would it be so dark?  
Barnes gives him a gentle shove, and the world rights itself, but is no brighter. Steven rubs at his eyes, and feels a canteen bump against his wrist.  
“Here, water,” Barnes says, and Steven takes the canteen with a rasp of thanks.  
The cap has already been unscrewed, so all he has to do is put the mouth to his lips and swallow. The water is tepid and metallic, but tastes as sweet as wine to his parched throat. He swallows, savoring, and looks up at the sky. Above them the dome of the heavens is velvet dark and scattered with light, more stars than he could possibly count. The waxing moon offers enough light to cast shadows, and Steven is entranced by it, enough that he starts to slip from his saddle again.  
But Barnes is there, moving his camel alongside Steven and using his shoulder to keep him righted. The press of their bodies should be negligible, Barnes is wrapped in a travelling robe and at some point someone wrapped a blanket around Steven. But he could swear where Barnes touches him, he can feel heat.

“Thank you.” Steven screws the cap back on the canteen and hands it back, glancing over as he does so.  
Barnes is a vision in the moonlight, his eyes shaded, his skin infused with a luminous glow.  
“I…” Steven utters dumbly. “I fell asleep.”  
Barnes grins at him, teeth like pearls. “You weren’t the only one.”  
He gestures ahead, and Steven can see Tony with his head tipped back, snoring faintly. Even Sam is sleeping, it seems, head bowed and chin resting on his chest. Al is nestled in the folds of Barnes’ robe, a front paw wrapped around Bucky’s arm.  
“Not you,” Steven says, to fill the silence more than anything.  
“Not me,” Barnes agrees, and there’s that smile again, the one that creases his cheeks and wrinkles his brow. “Otherwise we’d be going around in circles.”

Blame the moonlight. Blame Steven’s sleep-fuddled mind, so enchanted by the desert sky and the company he keeps. Blame his foolish tongue for what it does next.  
“How did you know?” The words come tumbling out, and Barnes doesn’t seem to understand them.  
“Huh?”  
“I mean.” Steven pauses, fumbling around for the right words and grasping only wrong ones. “Tony said the casbah you were arrested in was a… a den of ill repute.”  
“Did he?” Barnes snorts, waking Al from his sleep. “And how would he know?”  
Steven has no answer for that.  
Barnes strokes his cat, lulling him back to sleep before speaking. “I needed money. I was there to sell an artefact.” He gives Steven a sharp look. “Someone made off with it before the trade, and the buyer wasn’t too happy about that. Neither was I.”  
“I’m sorry,” Steven says quietly. “I’ll see that you’re reimbursed.”  
“Wasn’t you that took it,” Barnes says plainly. “Not your problem.”  
Steven returns his gaze to the heavens, half-laughing at his own naivety. “Tony said it was a house of sexual deviants,” he murmurs. “Who made decent martinis.”  
“Well.” Bucky’s mouth twitches up again. “That too.”

The wind picks up, and Steven feels the hairs on his arms stand to attention. It must be cold for him to shiver so.  
“How did you know?” he asks again. “That you were…”  
“A fruit?” Barnes asks, and Steven grimaces, disliking both the word and his inflection.  
“No, I mean.” Damnit, he can read and write in eight languages, why is this such a challenge? “How can you tell?”  
“Oh, right.” Barnes shifts in his saddle, rolling his shoulders. “Well first off, you get a certificate in the mail-”  
“Don’t mock me,” Steven snaps. He shakes his head. “Forget it. Forget I asked.”  
The silence that follows is like a thundercloud, the air hanging heavy around them.  
“Look,” Barnes says, a softer edge to his words. “You just know, okay? There’s nothing special about it. You just see a guy, and it’s not necessarily about looks, but you see him and you think…”  
When the words trail off Steven turns to him. In the pale light he can only map out traces of the man beside him, the line of his jaw, the strung bow of his lips, faded marks on a parchment like a lost treasure map.  
“Want,” Barnes says at last, with something like regret. “You want.”  
So there is a name to it, that itch under his skin, like fire and frost.  
Barnes tugs on his reins, coaxing his camel up ahead until he is just another shape in the darkness.


	5. Bird

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I’m going to kiss you now, Mr Barnes,” Steven announces.  
> Oh god, why does he have to be drunk? Why couldn’t he have done this sober, when Bucky could have believed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Where it is slowly revealed to the audience that the author has Opinions on cinematic depictions of Ancient Egypt, especially the dramatic mid-battle translations of heiroglyphs.

In the hour before dawn Bucky wakes the sleeping riders one by one, warning each of them to be silent as he does so. Wilson is already awake and alert, and needs no warning of what lies ahead. The man has been to the city before, Bucky would put money on it.  
Steven had dozed off again a few hours before, and Bucky wakes Tony first, checking that he understands the need to be silent before getting waved away like a horsefly. Steven he turns to last, nudging the camel alongside his own and giving his shoulder a gentle shake.  
“Shh,” Bucky whispers as Steven opens his eyes. “No knowing who’s in the shadows.”  
Steven’s head whips around, as if he might catch sight of someone, but it is the light up ahead that Bucky directs his attention to. A campfire flickering in the valley below, calling attention to the men gathered around it.  
Steven catches on quickly, his face falling. “We’re too late,” he says. “The others got here first.”  
“We’re not late,” Bucky reassures him. “We’re right on time, trust me.”  
Steven frowns at him, but doesn’t argue, watching curiously as Bucky leads them down into the valley.

By the time they reach the campfire it is already out, sand kicked over the smoking embers. The first traces of sunrise touch the horizon, the stars ahead fading with the dawn. Up ahead the campers are already on horseback, Pierce and Hodge leading the handful of cowboys to a ridge up ahead. They come to a stop, and Tony tips back the brim of his hat, staring out at the endless desert surrounding them.  
“Is this some kind of joke, Barnes?” he asks. “There’s nothing out here.”  
Sound travels across the empty desert, and one of the riders turns, seeking out the source. Rumlow, if Bucky remembers rightly, sneers at them, before leaning over to slap his companion on the arm.  
“They ain’t dead.” He says loudly. “You owe me ten bucks.”  
Bucky directs the camels to the ridge about a hundred yards down from where Rumlow and his posse wait. Hodge glances over, and when he sees Bucky staring at him quickly looks away again.  
“Gentlemen,” Pierce calls a greeting, and Bucky gives him a short nod in return.  
“What’s going on?” Steven asks, his voice lowered.  
Bucky turns to the desert before them. “We’re about to be shown the way.”  
“Hey Barnes!” Rumlow yells over at him. “You’d better have my five hundred bucks.”  
Bucky ignores him, watching the shimmering haze on the horizon as the dawn breaks.

For long, tense minutes there is nothing to be seen, only endless desert and a sky paling to blue. The shimmer on the horizon spreads and turns silver, looking for all the world like an oasis in the distance. But Bucky knows that there is no calm lake out there, that if you strike out for that still blue water it will vanish before your eyes.  
The mirage ripples, and fades away to reveal a ruined city hidden in the valley. Weathered stone obelisks point up to the sun between ruined archways, half obscured by the crumbling city walls.  
“Go!” Bucky yells, kicking his heels, and his camel lumbers forward, quickly gaining speed.  
Steven yells, a sharp “Hut-hut-hut!” that has his own camel charging forth, followed a moment later by Hodge and Rumlow.  
Bucky keeps a tight grip on his saddle, Al waking with a start and letting out an irate yowl. Bucky wraps an arm around him, shushing him as Steven takes the lead.  
A rested horse can reach a top speed of forty, maybe fifty miles an hour, and a camel maybe forty at best. But the horses are not well rested, and camels are a lot better suited to the desert. Steven yells in triumph as he races through the outer wall into the city.  
Bucky pulls on his own reins, slowing down as he crosses the wall, and turns his mount around just in time to see Rumlow crossing over, red faced and grim.  
“Guess you owe me five hundred bucks!” he shouts.  
“Go fuck yourself, Barnes!” Rumlow shouts back. Bucky gives him the finger, and rides off in pursuit of Steven, Tony and Sam on his heels.

*

The city of Thinis was a crumbling ruin three years ago and it is a crumbling ruin now. Bucky regards the city dubiously, watching out for strange movements and distant cries. The second a dust storm tries to grab him or a temple wall starts screaming he’s gone, life debt be damned. He’ll strap Steven and Tony to a camel if he has to, because he’s not leaving without the idiot and the idiot won’t leave without his brother.  
Wilson can fend for himself.  
Bucky checks on the camels, standing placidly in a courtyard near the outer wall where they have set up camp, and sighs to himself. Fine, he’ll make sure Wilson gets out too.  
“Hey, Barnes?” Tony calls from atop a ruin. “Is Stevie down there?”  
He waggles his eyebrows, and Bucky turns on his heel. No, Steven’s not here. Wilson is, sitting up on the wall, communing with a hawk that’s been flying around the camp. Al is up on the wall too, ass in the air, tail flapping like a flag, his gaze locked on the hawk too.  
Where is Steven? He was here a minute ago, the slippery little-  
“Nope,” Bucky shouts back. When Tony says nothing more, Bucky scowls up at him. “Fine, I’ll go look for him.”  
Tony gives him a little salute, and Bucky stalks out of the courtyard and into the city, muttering half-hearted curses under his breath.

It won’t take long to find Steven. The two groups split up as soon as they entered the city, Pierce and his men quick to claim the old temple and surrounding statues. Steven had complained bitterly, but Bucky would have none of it. The sooner he realises that there’s nothing in this place but sand and bones the better.  
Of course all this means that Steven keeps sneaking over into what they’ve clearly marked as their territory, and kicking up a stink when he gets chased off. The guy is free with his fists when cornered, and pointing a gun at him only pisses him off. Rollins didn’t take kindly to getting bopped on the nose, and Bucky has told him in no uncertain terms that if anyone points a gun at Rogers again, the only thing that will be found of them is their teeth.  
He knows exactly what’s gotten him so overprotective where Steven is concerned, but that doesn’t mean he has to admit it.

Pierce looks almost relieved when Bucky rounds a corner and finds Steven, pickaxe in hand, at the base of a statue. He’s surrounded, of course he is, and Pierce breaks away from the group to approach Bucky. Under his calm, personable demeanor he is pissed, Bucky can see it in the clench of his jaw.  
“I thought I had made myself clear, Mr Barnes,” Pierce says, gesturing to the statue. “This is our dig site.”  
“I don’t see your name on it!” Steven shouts.  
Bucky looks up at the figure looming over them, half buried in the sand, and his stomach clenches.  
Anubis.  
“Okay, time to go,” he announces with forced cheer, shoving his way through the cowboys and grabbing Steven by the hand.  
“What? Wait a minute!” Steven snaps, but Bucky yanks him away from the statue. “Get your hand off me!”  
Bucky ignores him, mostly certain that Steven isn’t going to swing that little pickaxe at him, and doesn’t let go until they are standing on solid stone.  
“There are other places to dig,” Bucky tells him as Steven twists out of his grip.  
“Other places?” Steven hisses. “That was a statue of-”  
“Anubis,” Bucky finishes for him. “You don’t want to go poking around there, trust me.”  
Steven scowls at him, and Bucky paces back and forth for a minute, trying to work off the tension creeping up his spine. Every nerve in his frame is jangling, every instinct screaming to run away. He wipes the base of his thumb against his mouth, tasting sand, and wishes to God he was holding his cat.  
“Stay away from that statue,” he says slowly. “Don’t go wandering onto the sands.”  
“What’s gotten into you?” Steven asks, concern finally outweighing irritation.  
Bucky shakes his head. Steven would never believe him.  
“Nothing,” he says with a quick smile, and gestures for Steven to come with him. “C’mon, I want to show you something.”  
Steven looks dubious, but follows him across the weathered stones.

Far from the statue of Anubis, in the lee of an ancient pillar and the city wall, a stairway descends into the earth. The steps have not been eroded by the sands, but protected, the thick layer on each step no hindrance to their descent. At the bottom of the stairs the door is sealed and covered in ancient plaster, symbols scrawled across the surface.  
“My god,” Steven murmurs, dragging his fingers along the carved symbols.  
Bucky, standing back with a hand on his revolver in case something creeps up on them, looks over. “What?”  
“These markings?” Steven says, eyes bright with excitement. “They’re _fascinating_.”  
“Yeah?” Bucky says doubtfully. “What do they say?”  
Steven turns to give him a dour look. “It’s not that simple. Hieroglyphics as a language was still being standardised in the 3rd Dynasty. I can’t exactly look at a four thousand year old piece of script without context or… or references, and work out its meaning.” He points at a symbol, a bird. “This is pronounced ‘em’ except when it isn’t. It means in, or from, or at, and sometimes it looks like this.” He taps at a geometric shape further down, parallel lines joined with an oblique angle.  
Bucky nods, but Steven is just getting warmed up. He points to a cluster of symbols; a bird, an odd shape that looks to Bucky like a guitar or a butter churn, and a series of lines and dots. “This is Horus, uniter of the two lands, and this -” He points to two twisted flax either side of a circle. “- means eternity. And this...”  
Steven trails off, lips moving as he traces each symbol.  
“What?” Bucky snaps. “What does it say?”  
“Uh.” Steven shakes his head. “Bird. It says bird bird bird bird.”  
“Oh.” Bucky peers at the inscription, where there is indeed a row of, well, birds.  
“Fetch the others,” Steven says decisively. “We need to get this door open.”

*

To Bucky’s surprise Wilson is happy to help out, joining Bucky with a crowbar and levering open the narrow stone door hidden behind the plaster. Beyond is blocked up with limestone rubble, which the three of them get to work on removing.  
While they sweat and struggle, carrying out chunks of stone and piling them up alongside the wall, Tony takes a suspiciously timed nap in the shade. His fake snores, hidden under his ridiculous pith helmet, quickly turn genuine, and Bucky resists the urge to drop a stone or two on him. Maybe pile up a little cairn around him, see how long it takes for him to notice.  
Al watches them from the base of a statue of Bastet, curled up between her front paws. Bucky knows he’s not sleeping by the constant twitch and swivel of his right ear, listening intently in case they disturb a nest of rats or something.  
“You know,” Bucky says as Steven passes him another chunk of limestone. “You could always trade your brother in for a cat.”  
Steven pauses, wiping sweat out of his eyes, and looks between Tony and Al. “Tempting,” he says at last.  
Bucky has a sudden vision of Tony the cat. A big, loud tuxedo tomcat, and sire of half the kittens in Cairo. Al rumbles, as if he can sense what they’re thinking, and sits up.  
“Maybe not,” Bucky says, tossing the stone over with the others and pausing to scratch Al behind the ear.

With the rubble cleared, a passage is revealed. It is short and narrow, with a low, sloping ceiling that leads down into the darkness, the daylight filtering out after only a few feet.  
In Steven’s pack is an oil lantern, and he carries it aloft as they pick their way through the chamber, knocking over pieces of broken pottery and stacked jars that litter the floor.  
The narrow passage soon leads to a much larger chamber, one that Steven’s light doesn’t reach the extent of, and Bucky finds himself gravitating to Steven’s side, huddling together in a pool of light surrounded by darkness.  
Steven fumbles his way through the shadows, and finally reaches the opposite wall. The entire chamber has been filled with hieroglyphics, covering the walls from ceiling to floor, interspersed with painted scenes depicting scenes of importance. The flickering lamp brings the painted walls to life, and the figures, daubed in vivid shades of red and blue, seem to dance and sway in the light.  
Steven is quick to wake his brother and set him to work, polishing the domed surface of several odd looking bronze shields that they find in the chamber, before arranging them along the passage. Tony seems to know what he’s doing, lifting the shields onto plinths dotted along the passage, and Bucky frowns at the performance. “Am I missing something?” he asks quietly, as Steven rolls one over to the entrance.  
“An Ancient Egyptian trick,” Steven says, rubbing his sleeve over the dull, pitted metal. “Watch.”  
He hefts the shield onto the plinth, calling to Tony further down the passage to move out of the way before tilting the convex surface. It catches the sunlight, momentarily blinding Bucky. He ducks out of the way with a curse as Steven adjusts the angle, a beam of sunlight sweeping across the wall.  
“Just a little to the left, Tony!” Steven shouts. Tony obliges, nudging his shield over until it catches the beam.  
The effect is instantaneous. Shafts of light criss-cross the corridor, reflecting off the domed surface of each shield all the way down to the chamber, flooding it with sunlight. Steven hurries through the optical trick, the light cutting out every time he passes through the beam, only to flick back a moment later. Bucky follows, watching dust motes drift through the light, swirls and eddies rising and falling at Steven’s passing.  
“Huh,” he murmurs as Steven goes through the large chamber, adjusting each shield until the room is filled with warm, muted rays of light. “Neat.”

*

There is no treasure.  
The more they search the chamber, the more obvious it becomes. There is no treasure.  
Steven doesn’t seem to care, he’s practically giddy over the paintings on the walls, and the dense blocks of pictographs, sitting in the four thousand year old dust with a notebook and pencil.  
There are no golden statues, no sarcophagus, no piles of treasure for the dead in the afterlife. There is only dust and debris and broken pottery. Tony is far less relaxed about the lack of treasure than his brother, skulking about the chamber and picking up shards and loose bricks, only to throw them down when they turn out to be worthless. Steven scolds him when he kicks over old pots, and yells when he blocks the light, which just makes Tony kick more pots and block more lights until Bucky intervenes. It takes a bottle of brandy to make Tony go away, and Wilson leaves with him, muttering something about seeing what the cowboys are getting up to. Nothing good, Bucky suspects.  
Left alone to his devices, Steven seems happy to sit in the soft light indefinitely, or at least until he’s filled his notebook with hieroglyphs. Bucky is already resigned to dragging him out on his ass when the sun goes down. Until then, he heads back out into the city, shielding his eyes from the too-bright sun, and sees what Al is up to.

As suspected, Bucky finds himself venturing back into the chamber come evening, using Steven’s lantern to light the way. Faint light still fills the chamber, too weak to illuminate the shadows and ceiling, but enough light for Steven to study by. Would he even notice when the sun set? Or would he complain that Tony was blocking the light until he realised he was alone, and unable to find his way out?  
“Tony, you’re-” Steven turns to see Bucky, lantern raised. “Oh good, bring that light over here.”  
Bucky doesn’t have it in him to argue, and walks over to join him, sat on an old plinth in the corner with a dictionary in one hand and a brush in the other. With the sun setting the oppressive heat of the day has broken outside, but in the chamber it is pleasantly cool. Soon enough it will be uncomfortably cold, and Steven can be coaxed outside, where there is a campfire and blankets, and half a bottle of brandy if they’re quick about it.  
Bucky holds the lantern as instructed, illuminating a painting of black -clad figures looming over another, doing something… “What the hell is going on there?” Bucky asks.  
Steven looks up at him, eyes bright. “They’re torturing him.”  
“Eeesh,” Bucky looks at the image again, tilting his head to try and make sense of it. “No need to sound so excited about it.”  
“No, no, you don’t understand.” Steven climbs down from his plinth, putting the brush down in his place. “This whole chamber is a… is a history. The story of a man who was, okay so I’m a little fuzzy on the details, but he did a lot of very bad things, and was sentenced to death.”  
Bucky nods to the image. “Is that what all the… spikey things are?”  
“Yes!” Steven starts striding into the gloom of the chamber, gesturing to the wall by the entrance.

Bucky follows after him, and isn’t that becoming a habit? “So this whole room is like some kind of book? Like the book of the dead?”  
“The book of the dead isn’t a book, it’s a series of scrolls, instructions on entering the afterlife. This is a biography.” Steven says pointing to an image of a figure holding a spear, countless dead lying around him, including one with the head of a bull. “I don’t know who, they’ve chiselled off any mention of his name. That’s how you know someone is really bad; destroy the name and they can’t live on in the afterlife.” Steven points to where the name has been scratched out of the stone. “It says he was the first king of Upper Egypt, some five thousand years ago. He killed the previous ruler, the one there with the bull’s head, as well as…” Steven gestures to other, similar scenes. A figure with a stork over his head, broken in two. A man alongside a symbol like a duck. A scratchy, incomplete image, the name in the accompanying cartouche little more than a spiral.  
“So he what? Overthrew the kingdom?” Bucky stares at the bodies, stacked like winter logpiles.  
“Worse than that. It says he was unkillable, that he was the son of Serket, the scorpion goddess. Her name means ‘she who tightens the throat’.”  
Bucky suppresses a shudder. “Well she sounds like a blast.”  
Steven ignores him. “He was a madman, a savage.”  
Bucky holds the lantern higher, catching glimpses of things he does not want to see in detail. Bodies of men and children, platters of bones piled high. He lowers the lantern again, moving away from the wall.  
“After years of war, Menes, the founder of Thinis, finally defeated him,” Steven continues. “He united Upper and Lower Egypt against this Scorpion, and brought his reign of terror to an end.” Steven pauses. “Or at least he thought he did.”  
“Oh god, what?” Bucky murmurs, as Steven returns to his plinth.

Steven takes several minutes to answer, studying the symbols before him.  
“Come on, Steven,” Bucky hisses. “What happened?”  
“The Egyptians didn’t have prisons,” Steven says, almost to himself.  
“Good for them,” Bucky mutters.  
“Hmm. Instead they beat you with clubs, and jabbed a spear into your back five times, the five bleeding cuts.” Steven glances over his shoulder at Bucky, the lamplight catching his glasses and making them glow. “Killing you would mean loss of labour, so they cut you and put you back to work.”  
“Ouch.”  
“But the really bad people, the tomb raiders, the pharaoh killers, were put to death.” Steven points to a painting, where the Scorpion is being held down by figures wearing animal masks. “They, uh, mutilated him.”  
In the painting Bucky can see a long knife and a spill of red. “Mutilated?”  
Steven hesitates, before making a chopping gesture around his belt buckle.  
“Oh.” It takes a moment for Bucky to catch on. “Oh _what_?”  
“Then they put a spike up his… um… up his…”  
There is another image further along, the Scorpion being held aloft by his arms and legs by the animal headed figures while below him another holds a long sharpened spike to his-  
“Oh, that is nasty,” Bucky grimaces. “Did it work?”  
“No.” Steven pushes the lantern to the right, revealing a series of images. “He was drowned, impaled with spikes, and immolated, but would not die.”  
“Immolated?”  
“Burned alive,” Steven whispers. “It says here that the body moved as if still living, so Menes had him sealed in a black granite sarcophagus. Menes feared that he was unkillable, and if freed would continue on his murderous rampage.”

For a long, awful minute Bucky stares up at the walls, at the images of torture and death in the fading light.  
“So this… uh… this isn’t his tomb, right?” he asks carefully.  
“No, no,” Steven shakes his head emphatically. “Like I said, this is a history, an ancient story kept secret and buried in the desert.”  
“Right.” Bucky doesn’t feel any better, and won’t until they are out in the open air. “So this place isn’t… uh… cursed.”  
“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Steven bursts out. “No, it is not! For the last time, there’s no such thing as curses.”  
Bucky takes in the paintings, the almost savage way the Scorpion’s name had been torn from the stone, and doesn’t believe him, not one bit.  
“Come on,” Bucky nods to the way out. “It’s getting late, and I’m freezing my ass off down here.”  
Steven looks up, finally noticing the lateness of the hour. “Very well,” he says, collecting up his supplies. “Is there anything to eat?”  
“Beans,” Bucky says wearily. “But if you’re lucky Al will let you lick out a sardine can with him.  
Steven grimaces. “Beans are fine.”

The sun has set by the time they are above ground, the endless sky a riot of red and gold that burnish the desert bronze. It’s easy enough to find the campfire, a beacon of heat and light in the encroaching darkness, but when they make their way over to where Tony is sitting, brandy in hand, back ramrod straight, they find he is not alone.  
“Mr Rogers,” Pierce calls out on greeting. “Barnes. I trust you’ve had a productive day.”  
Wilson is nowhere to be seen, and Al is skulking around in the shadows, a pale smudge moving between the columns.  
“Yes,” Steven sits down across from his brother. “It’s been-”  
“Wonderful,” Tony talks over Steven, boorish but not as drunk as he’s acting. “Remarkable. Amazing finds,” he rattles on. “Stevie here is already writing up a paper for the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology.”  
Pierce gives Tony a brittle smile before turning his attention to Steven, and Bucky plants himself down on the stone beside him, just short of being a physical barrier between them.  
“You found something interesting?” Pierce asks, ignoring Bucky’s glare.  
“I have.” Steven is too excited by the day’s discovery to hold his damn tongue. “A fascinating example of Third Dynasty-”  
“He’s not interested, Stevie,” Tony announces, flapping a hand in Pierce’s direction. “He’s just here to rub our noses in it.”  
“Well,” Pierce rubs his hands together. “Now that you mention it we have been fortunate. A burial site underneath that Anubis statue, you know the one I mean Mr Rogers?”  
To Bucky’s surprise Steven doesn’t rise to the bait, only nods in interest. “You found a tomb?”  
“So it seems,” Pierce confirms. “Though usually in these situations there is a secondary chamber, a serdab, for the storage of items necessary for the afterlife, but so far we haven’t found one.”

Tony mutters under his breath, but Steven leans forward, fascinated. “But you found a burial chamber, right? What period? Because all the things that we have uncovered have been Third Dynasty.”  
“For Third Dynasty I would expect the chamber to be lined in wood, but what we found seems to be charcoal.” Pierce shrugs. “And a granite sarcophagus that looks very promising.”  
“Tell them about the guys who died,” Tony snaps. “The local boys you dragged out here on the promise of a nickel a day to do your dirty work.”  
Pierce adjusts the cuffs of his jacket, nonplussed. “I hardly think that’s-”  
“The tomb was booby trapped. Iron salts.” Tony uncorks the brandy bottle and takes a swig. “Did you take any names, I mean before they all started vomiting blood? Are you gonna tell their families, or just leave them in the desert to rot?” Tony wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. “But it’s fine because you found a mummy. Reckon you can grind it up and sell it for fertiliser, right?”  
Bucky reaches over to grab the brandy before Tony can seal it up again, and takes a deep swallow before handing it back.  
“Keep it,” he murmurs, giving Tony a pat on the shoulder.  
“Was gonna,” Tony sniffs, taking another swig.

“A granite sarcophagus?” Steven asks, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Was there any kind of inscription on it?”  
Tony gives Steven a dirty look for still talking to the guy, and any other time Bucky would be joining him. But he can see where the line of questioning is headed.  
“There was,” Pierce nods, happy to ignore Tony’s outrage. “It will take some time to translate, the surface has sustained some kind of damage in the past. It looks like whoever found it last tried to burn it.”  
The brandy loosens Bucky’s tongue. “Was there a scorpion on the casket?”  
Pierce turns his way, curious. “Now why would you ask that?”  
Bucky shrugs. “Just asking.”  
“The use of the scorpion motif became common at the end of the Third Dynasty,” Steven says quickly. “Around the same time that Thinis was abandoned. And we are not far from Unn El Qa’ab where Menes himself was reputedly buried. Several examples of the scorpion image have been found there. Hang on, let me get my books.”  
Steven scrambles to his feet, and Bucky frowns as he hurries over to their packs. His books are at the bottom of the Nile, so what is he playing at?  
“Another time,” Pierce says, rising to his feet.  
“Really,” Steven rummages around in one of the packs. Tony’s pack. “I have a fascinating study from 1901, the dig site of B17/B18. The examples of pottery shards are-”  
“Busy day tomorrow,” Pierce says through gritted teeth. “Early start and all that.”  
Steven gives him a quick little smile. “Another time then.”  
Pierce makes his escape, and Tony bursts out laughing. Steven smiles, small and proud, and lifts Tony’s bottle of Talisker out of the pack. “I thought we’d never get rid of him.”

After a long day of studying and an empty stomach, the Talisker goes to Steven’s head. He’s good company when drunk, unlike Tony, passed out over the empty whiskey bottle.  
Bucky stretches out by the fire with the dregs of brandy, Al curled up by his feet, and listens to Steven chatter, a laundry list of complaints about respected Egyptologists who sound as bad as the tomb raiders they look down on. Seems like the only difference is a posh accent and an already full bank account, as per fricking usual.  
Bucky takes a sip of brandy and tries to follow Steven down one of his meandering little monologues. “So you’re saying it was mosquitoes that killed all those guys who found King Tut?”  
“Tutankhamun,” Steven enunciates with exaggerated care.  
“Yeah, that guy.”  
“Yes. An infected mosquito bite, and… and fungus.” Steven hiccoughs. “Point is there’s no such thing as.” He pauses for a hiccough that never comes. “Curses.”  
“This place is cursed, Steven,” Bucky says as gently as he can.  
“No no no,” Steven fumbles in his pocket before pulling out his notebook. He shambles to his feet and staggers over to sit next to Bucky, and Al darts out of the way with a soft hiss. “It’s a misdunder… midsunder… _wrong_.”  
“Uh-huh,” Bucky mutters as Steven flicks through his notes. He’s sitting far too close, and whenever Bucky tries to shuffle away Steven follows, resting his elbow on Bucky’s hip for balance.  
“These curses people keep talking about.” Steven gets to the end of his notes, and goes back to the beginning again, flicking through the pages more slowly this time. “They’re more like… like ‘Keep off the Grass’.”  
He finds his page, and leans against Bucky, back warm and solid against his stomach. Bucky shifts around a little while looking at the notes over his shoulder, partly to see what he’s on about and mostly because the last thing he needs is any part of Steve Rogers rubbing up against his dick.

“Here we are,” Steven says, jabbing the page. He has painstakingly copied out the dense blocks of hieroglyphics in his book, with an attempted translation on the opposing page.  
“You did all that today?” Bucky says, impressed. “Hell, no wonder you need glasses.”  
“Vision isn’t a battery, Mr Barnes,” Steven says crisply. “It doesn’t wear out from use.”  
“If you say so.”  
Self-conscious, Steven pushes his glasses up his nose with his index finger, and starts to read from his notes.  
“ _It is to you that I speak; you who have found this tomb_.”  
“Well,” Bucky shifts a little more, and Steven shifts with him, somehow getting even closer. “They seem nice.”  
“Shh! Okay, so I’m not sure about this bit, or this bit, but I think this says _Look for a place worthy and rest in it_ , which is basically saying go bury your dead elsewhere, this is taken.” He turns the page, skimming through his notes, and it occurs to Bucky that it took the Ancient Egyptians a long time to say anything. “ _Ah, here we are. He who disturbs this place will receive great reproach from the south_ , and something about the beak of Horus? Or getting pecked at by hawks?” Bucky shrugs, and Steven turns another page. “And again, _He who disturbs this place will receive great reproach from the west_ … Hmm, this symbol I don’t recognise.”  
Bucky follows Steven’s pointing finger to a pictogram of some kind of ape. “It’s not Thoth or A’an.”  
“Well, whoever it is, he’ll come get you if you disturb the tomb, right?”  
“Exactly.” Steven abandons his book in favour of Bucky’s brandy.

“Maybe you should slow down a little,” Bucky warns, and Steven turns to him, shoving the cork back into the bottle. Whatever clarity his notes had brought him is quickly fading, and Steven’s gaze is becoming glassy and a little out of focus.  
“I know my limits, Mr Barnes,” he says, slurring a little.  
“Call me Bucky.”  
“Bucky.” Steven smiles suddenly, listing to one side, and it makes something lodged in Bucky’s throat ache. “You’re a Bucky.”  
Whatever point he’s making is beyond Bucky’s comprehension, but he knows exactly what the guy has in mind when he sets the bottle down and climbs onto Bucky’s lap.  
“Woah!” Bucky tries to scramble away, but Steven leans over him, hands braced on his shoulders. “Wait a minute.”  
“I’m going to kiss you now, Mr Barnes,” Steven announces.  
Oh god, why does he have to be drunk? Why couldn’t he have done this sober, when Bucky could have believed him.  
“Bucky,” he whispers as Steven leans down to kiss him.  
“Bucky,” Steven breathes as their lips meet.

Steven is as contentious and demanding in intimacy as he is in everything else, and Bucky’s lips are barely parted before his tongue finds its way between them. Steven tastes of dust and whisky and little else, and his hands grip Bucky’s shoulders hard enough to bruise.  
If Steven were sober, if he were sound of mind, Bucky would think nothing of rolling them over into the darkness and putting his mouth on every inch of sand-dusted skin. Of unbuttoning his khakis and making him moan.  
But he’s not, so Bucky doesn’t. He gently pulls away, their lips parting with a faint smacking, and lays back on the stone, Steven slumping down with him. A moment later Steven is snoring loudly, head tucked under Bucky’s chin.  
“Well, fuck,” Bucky sighs, reaching for a blanket.


	6. The Mummy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “There was a…” Steven sits down heavily on a fallen pillar. His chest feels oddly tight, his heart hammering against his ribs. “It was a…”  
> “It was a mummy,” Barnes says, sounding shocked.  
> “No, no,” Steven sits up, holding out his hand. “There has to be a reasonable explanation for-”  
> “There was a mummy!” Barnes snaps, his voice rising an octave. “And you punched it in the face!”

It’s not what he had imagined, Steven muses, not quite asleep and not entirely awake, being on an expedition. Tony always complained about the cold nights, the temperatures dropping to near freezing once the blazing sun finally sets and the desert sands turn cold. Of course he was talking nonsense, or using it as an excuse to get drunk. Steven is perfectly comfortable right now.  
With the heavy weight of a cat on his back, soft and purring, and the ground surprisingly warm beneath him, Steven isn’t cold at all. The stones are a little uncomfortable, lumpy in some places and hard edged in others, but not something he needs to get drunk to endure. Steven squirms a little, trying to get more comfortable, and the ground underneath him says “Ooof.” and “Watch the elbows.”  
_Oh no._  
If there is a world record for fastest time between comfortably asleep and violently awake, Steven is sure he’s broken it. He lurches to his feet, shaking off the cat, who lets out an indignant yowl, and steps on Barnes’ gut in his haste to get away.  
“Ow!” Barnes yelps, sitting up and pushing the hair out of his eyes. “Watch where you’re going.”  
He’s still half-asleep, shirt rumpled and the top few buttons undone, and Steven has a very vivid recollection of his fingers being cold in the night and seeking out warmth, and a sleepy voice murmuring _that tickles._

“Oh my god!” Steven tries to put as much distance between himself and Barnes without actually climbing into the dying embers of the fire. “Mr Barnes I am so-”  
“Bucky,” Barnes sighs as the cat comes over to him, yawping for attention.  
Tony sits up, bleary-eyed and hair askew. “What’s all that racket?” he asks, and then clutches his forehead with a whine.  
“Go back to sleep, Tony,” Steven says absently. “Mr Barnes and I-”  
“ _Bucky_ ,” Barnes says again. “My name is Bucky.”  
“Since when?” Steven must be hungover, his head is pounding like a drum.  
Barnes stares at him, looking almost disappointed. Tony fumbles around in his jacket for a hip flask, and gulps down the contents. “You’re a Bucky?” he asks, voice catching on the aftertaste.  
Steven looks up at the sky. It’s still early, the sunrise a smudge on the horizon. It makes his eyes ache, that and the dull, rhythmic pounding. “Go back to sleep, Tony. I’ll wake you when there’s coffee.”  
“I can’t sleep,” Tony grouses. “Not with all this noise.”  
Barnes gets to his feet, seeking out something as his cat goes running off to investigate. Steven takes a moment in their distraction to rub his hands over his face. His cheeks are still burning, embarrassment and humiliation, and something sharper and far more gleeful churning around in his stomach. This is awful, and terrible, and maybe he can seal himself in that chamber and never come out again.  
“I’m sorry, we’ll be quiet,” he promises his brother softly.  
“Not you.” Tony points to the outer wall. “Them.”

That thump behind his eyes, that pulse beating through his body is not his own heart. As Steven walks across the flagstones he feels it, a shaking of the earth, as though a hundred staffs were striking the ground as one. When he looks up at the city wall, that is exactly what he sees.  
A hundred men or more stand on the ruined wall, holding wooden spears aloft. They are dressed in a manner unlike anything Steven has seen outside of temple walls; leather skirts overlaid with reeds. But for the skirts they are naked, their dark-skinned bodies daubed with white, men and women alike.  
Their leader - and it is obvious who their leader is - the one wearing a carved wooden mask in the shape of a snarling ape, raises his spear. He utters a sharp call, a few syllables, and the figures spread out around the city either side of him chant in answer, and brings down their spears in unison.  
A call and return song, a war cry to bring terror to their enemies. Steven swallows, his throat dry. It’s working.  
There is a commotion from further into the city, and as they retreat from the wall, pushing deeper into the city in search of safety Pierce and his men come stalking out in search of answers. The cowboys are armed, of course, and though the tribesmen surrounding them have nothing more than spears, he doubts they will back down in the face of a half dozen revolvers.  
Barnes hasn’t drawn a weapon, Steven notes. He watches the tribe, wary and tense, but waiting to see what happens next.

“Who are they?” Pierce shouts over. “What do they want?”  
Steven shakes his head, looking to his brother for guidance. Tony shrugs, empty flask in hand, but does not reach for a weapon either. Steven looks around for Sam too, but there is no sign of him. He had gone to see what Pierce and his men had found the night before, and clearly had not come back.  
“Fuck this,” Rumlow announces, aiming his gun at the leader. Pierce makes no attempt to stop him, looking almost amused, and Steven puts himself between the man and his target.  
“Wait!” he shouts, holding out his hand as Barnes hisses at him to get back. “Lower your gun.” Rumlow ignores him, so Steven looks to Pierce instead. “Tell your man to lower his weapon.”  
“Why would I do that?” Pierce asks with a smile.  
“Because…” Because it’s a one-sided fight? Because they have _sticks_ and you have bullets? Because we are trespassing on their land?  
Barnes pulls out his revolver and points it at Rumlow. “Because he asked nicely,” he growls. “And I won’t.”  
The tribesmen start moving, climbing down from the walls and forming a procession, marching through the ruins towards the two groups.  
“Put it away, Brock,” Pierce says quietly. Rumlow scowls, lowering the gun but not holstering it, and Barnes backs down immediately, holstering his gun and turning to watch the figures, their calls getting louder as they approach.

“Hapụ!” the leader, broad shouldered and barrel chested, raises his spear again.  
Steven frowns, tilting his head to one side as they begin to surround them, pushing Pierce and his men closer to the three of them. Barnes keeps a hand on his holster, watching that no one gets too close, and leans in to mutter in Steven’s ear.  
“I know that look,” he says between the chants. “What have you figured out?”  
Steven opens his mouth to deny knowing anything, but there is something in the way Barnes looks at him, something trusting, and it makes Steven trust in return.  
“I think… I think they’re speaking Igbo,” he says as the circle closes around them. “But that’s a Nigerian language, why would-”  
“The west,” Barnes hisses as the leader steps forward, his dark eyes visible behind the mask. “That’s what the curse said, the ape from the west would-”  
“Silence!” The masked figure roars, and Steven bites back a yelp.  
The masked man takes a step back, regarding each of them in turn. “For thousands of years we, the Jabari, have watched over this land,” he barks.  
Steven steps forward. “Excuse me, but-”  
The mask swivels towards him, and the man behind it utters a low grunt. The tribesmen around them pick up the sound, some hooting, high and sharp while others grunt, low and staccato panting that rises in volume, drowning out all other sounds.  
Barnes gently grabs Steven by the collar and pulls him back, and as soon as their leader stops grunting they fall silent.

“Leave this place or die,” the leader warns.  
Rumlow raises his gun again. “Make me.”  
Barnes curses, turning to him with a hand out, ready to force the gun down, but the Jabari are faster, a dozen or more of them lunge forward with their spears, stopping a hair’s breadth from impaling Rumlow. They hold their position while he freezes, a spear tip pressing against his cheek.  
The leader pulls off his mask, revealing a man in his prime, his beard neatly trimmed. “How many bullets do you have in that little gun?” he asks, walking towards him. “Four? Six? A hundred?”  
He moves like a bear, like a gorilla, all bulk and claws and swagger.  
“Alright, that’s enough,” Pierce says softly, moving forward to block the way. He ignores the spears pointed at him, going so far as to push the nearest one aside. “Now I appreciate that this land is sacred to you people, but I’m sure between us we can come to-” he smiles, pulling his wallet from his coat. “-some arrangement.”  
“Oh come on!” Steven snaps, and Barnes tugs him back, a little less gently this time.  
“Okay, we get it,” Barnes calls out. “Loud and clear. Just give us a chance to pack up an-”  
“What? No!” Steven shrugs off Barnes’ hand. “I’m not going anywhere, you can’t-”  
“Leave!” the Jabari leader snarls, turning to him. “Or die.”  
“We’ll leave,” Barnes reaches out to reel Tony in as well.  
“Speak for yourself, I’m not-”  
“We’ll leave,” Barnes repeats. “Sorry for trampling around on your, uh, sacred whatever.”

The leader points his spear at Pierce, who spreads out his hands, smiling indulgently. “Of course.”  
Steven doesn’t trust a word that comes out of the man’s mouth, but the Jabari seem willing to take it.  
“We will return at day’s end. If we find anyone here, we will kill them and leave their bones for the vultures,” the leader says.  
He doesn’t wait for their assent, and puts his mask back on before turning away. He slaps his chest, letting out another grunt, and the Jabari call out in unison. As one they withdraw their spears, and march away.  
Their leader is the last to leave the city, turning to look upon them one last time before disappearing into the desert with his people. In a few short minutes it is as if they were never there to begin with.

“What just happened?” Tony says, breaking the silence.  
Pierce adjusts his jacket, looking discomforted. “Nothing of importance.”  
“Yeah, well,” Rollins sneers, all bluster now the panic is over. “They’re so set on getting rid of us, there’s gotta be treasure out here.”  
“What the-” Barnes catches himself. “They’re a desert people, they care about water, not gold.” He gestures out to the sands, fixing Rollins with a hard stare. “Did they look wealthy to you?”  
Rollins stalks towards him, but Barnes holds his ground. “You wanna start something?”  
Barnes shakes his head, turning back to Steven. “Come on, get your things packed. The sooner we’re out of here the better.”  
Pierce makes no such demands of his own men, watching disdainfully as Barnes urges Steven and Tony back to camp. Hodge, who had been cowering behind Rumlow the whole time, finally speaks up, pushing his way past Rollins to yell at Barnes’ back.  
“Running away again, Barnes? Tail between your legs,” Hodge shouts.  
Steven sees the way Barnes’ shoulders stiffen, but he keeps hustling them away.  
“All that shit you used to spout about faces in the sand,” Hodge follows them for a few paces. “You’re nothing but a goddamn coward.”  
When Barnes doesn’t rise to the challenge Hodge spits at his feet. Steven turns to yell back, but Barnes pushes him onwards.  
“Walk away,” Barnes murmurs to him. It goes against everything Steven believes in, every principle he holds close, but Steven shuts his mouth and keeps his head down until they reach camp.

Despite, or perhaps in spite of Barnes’ insistence that they leave immediately, Steven takes his notebook and pencils and goes back into the chamber. After all, the Jabari have sworn to return at sundown, which leaves him most of the day to research. He points this all out to Barnes, calmly and reasonably. So long as they are out of the city _before_ sunset it’s fine, and only a fool would cross the desert under a midday sun.  
To his surprise Barnes relents, leaving him to the cool of the chamber and the paintings bathed in reflected sunlight.  
Perhaps he is just as rattled by the arrival of the Jabari, and that is why he hesitates before leaving, as if there was something he wanted to say but decides against it. No doubt it was some warning about being used as a mattress in the future, or some clumsy words about…  
Steven flinches away from the thought, from the whole sorry mess of them. He is here for research, and maybe stick one to the Bainbridge scholars. Three days from now they’ll arrive back in Cairo and he’ll never have to see Barnes again.  
He sits in the halflight and stares up at the paintings, at the rituals and prayers carefully transcribed across the walls. The Egyptians said that on death your heart would be weighed against the feather of truth. He feels his heart beating against his breast, and it has never seemed so heavy, so damning.

*

Steve knows he has company long before the light fades out, he heard footsteps long before they passed in front of the bronze discs, cutting off the reflections in their passing.  
“Tony,” Steven sighs, turning to a fresh page in his notebook. “I said give me another half-hour.”  
Tony has been down to check on him twice, the first time to hand over some dense, chewy flatbread cooked over the embers of the fire, the second to tell him to finish up.  
“Yeah,” Barnes huffs from across the room. “That was an hour ago.”  
Steven pauses in his notes. “Mr Barnes.”  
“I said call me Bucky.”  
Steven closes his book, turning to get a look at him. He looks the same as always, cat curled around his shoulders. “That’s… not something I can say with a straight face,” he replies.  
Barnes huffs again, a soft breath of laughter. “C’mon. Time’s up.”  
“Is it sunset yet?” Steven asks crisply.  
Barnes shakes his head. “Not yet.”  
“Then time isn’t up yet.” Steven turns back to his work. “Come back then.”  
“Steven…” Barnes says softly.  
“Has Pierce and his men left?” Steven asks, knowing what the answer will be.  
“No.” He can hear the light scratch of Al’s claws on his shirt, the way Barnes shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “But we’re not stupid.”  
Steven hums, unconvinced, and Barnes snorts, turning around. “If you’re not above ground in ten minutes I’ll come drag you out by the hair,” he says, and stalks off.  
Steven’s fingers twitch - _now there’s a thought_ \- and he drops his notebook in the dust. He curses his trembling hands and his vivid imagination, and follows Barnes out.

They say the midday sun is the worst heat of the day, but Steven thinks mid afternoon must be a close second. Everything is too hot to touch, the carved stones under his feet and the shifting sands all burn and reflect back heat, until even the shade feels like being in an oven.  
The camels are milling around, the last of the packs strapped onto their back, and Tony is dozing in the shade of a statue. At least Steven thinks he’s dozing, he could be pretending to avoid doing any heavy lifting.  
There’s something missing. Steven turns in a full circle, taking in Al washing himself on the wall and Barnes checking on the camels before he realises what it is.  
“Where’s Sam?”  
The cat lets out a soft _mow_ and Barnes frowns, counting their camels. They’re all there, including Sam’s, Steven recognises his bag.  
“He was gonna check on the other guys,” Tony says, eyes still firmly shut. “See what they’d found.”  
Barnes glares at him, no doubt just realising he’s been awake the whole time.  
“But that was yesterday,” Steven goes over to the camel, who snaps its teeth at him. “Did he come back?”  
Barnes shakes his head. “I didn’t see him.”  
“I was getting familiar with a nice bottle of brandy,” Tony mumbles. “Don’t look at me.”  
Steven turns to Barnes, panic rising in his throat. “Something happened to him.”  
“You don’t know that,” Barnes says quietly.  
“Something happened,” Steven gives Barnes a plaintive look. “We have to-”  
“Oh no.” Barnes shakes his head. “No, we’ve stayed too long anyway.”  
“ _Barnes._ ”  
At that his resolve seems to crumble, his shoulders sagging.  
“My little brother is a stubborn goat,” Tony says with a grin. “No sense fighting when he’s digging his heels in.”  
“I noticed,” Barnes sighs, scratching his fingers through his hair. “Alright, fine. But we’re out this place in the next hour, find him or don’t find him. Understood?”  
Steven doesn’t dignify him with an answer, already heading over to where Pierce’s base camp lies on the far side of the city. Barnes goes over to give Tony a persuasive kick on the shin.  
“Come on, the more the merrier.”

The camp is deserted, though by the possessions strewn about the place they haven’t packed up and left.  
“Ugh.” Steven nudges an empty can of beans abandoned by the firepit. “This is appalling behaviour! This is a site of historical importance, and they’re treating it like their backyard.”  
Barnes’ cat was quick to follow them in the search, and clambers over the packs and supplies, sniffing around no doubt in the hope of an abandoned sandwich somewhere. Tony is sniffings around the bags too, checking for any bottles of liquor lying around.  
“I don’t think they care too much about historic sites.” Barnes does a quick walk around, though Steven can’t see what he’s looking for. “They’re here for gold.”  
“There’s too much fixating on gold,” Steven sniffs. “These people digging up dead bodies and grinding them down for fertiliser. It’s disgusting.”  
Barnes looks at him askance, Al climbing back up onto his shoulder having failed to find treats. “You’ve never had to wonder where the next meal came from,” he says quietly. “Or where to sleep.”  
Steven bristles. It makes his skin crawl, Barnes casting judgement on him. It’s hateful. “You know what I mean,” he says, a little softer. “None of these men are going without. They’re just…”  
“Greedy,” Barnes finishes. “Well, there’s no Wilson here, and no signs of a fight either.”  
Tony lets out a sound of triumph, holding up a bottle of Bushmills. “I think I found Pierce’s bag!”  
Barnes snorts, and doesn’t make any effort to keep Tony from pocketing the whisky.  
Steven turns to the path tracked through the sand to the Anubis statue. “We have to be sure,” he says firmly.  
Barnes and Tony exchange a glance, and by some silent agreement, they follow after him.

While Steven and Barnes had been busy unearthing the chamber, Pierce and his gang had not stood idle. A hastily dug tunnel leads down beneath the statue, and despite Barnes muttering about steering clear, he follows Steven and Tony down.  
“You’re not a coward, Barnes,” Steven snags a lantern hanging from the entrance and makes his way into the tunnel. “So why are you so afraid.”  
“I’m not afraid,” Barnes mutters.. “I just have some self-preservation instincts is all.”  
“Highly admirable,” Tony remarks, toying with the cork on his whisky.  
Barnes sighs. “Look. There’s a word for whatever is down here. Evil.”  
“I don’t believe in good and evil, Mr Barnes.”  
“Well I do,” Barnes snaps back, quick as a whip. “Whatever’s hidden under these sands, it’s evil, and you’re best off leaving well alone.”  
Before Steven can put paid to that argument, the tunnel opens up into a small chamber. He lets out a soft gasp, raising the lantern up. It’s a tomb, the walls adorned with painted figures decorated in gold, their surfaces oddly speckled. Piled against the walls are grave goods, the things the dead valued in life. A chariot, its frame buckled with time, stands against one wall. Spears, tarnished and crumbling, are stacked up alongside a pile of linen wrapped shapes that makes Steven’s heart kick and pound. _Mummies_.  
“Oooh!” Tony darts towards the remains of a cabinet, where golden ushabti are stacked in disordered rows.  
Barnes makes no move towards the treasure, instead walking over to another passage leading deeper underground. Faint sounds echo back into the chamber, familiar voices distorted and strange.  
“I think I found the others,” Barnes whispers, retreating from the doorway.

To his shame, Steven forgets about Sam the moment he steps into the chamber. In all his studies he has never ventured into a recently opened tomb before, and it is all so fascinating he can hardly contain himself. He approaches a painted wall, taking in the imperfections blooming over the gold paint, and Tony whines.  
“Hey, stop hogging the light!”  
“This is remarkable!” Steven reaches up to touch the painting, hesitating briefly before letting his fingers track the sweeping lines of black and gold. “But what is all this?”  
He reaches out to touch the grey blotches, and Barnes snatches him by the wrist.  
“Careful,” he says softly.  
“But I’ve never seen anything like it before.” Steven lets Barnes pull him back. He shouldn’t have touched, he could have done irreparable damage, he knows that. But it was _there_.  
“It looks like mould,” Barnes says absently. “You never seen mould on a bathroom wall?”  
Steven takes a step back, looking at the painting with fresh eyes. “You’re right!”  
“Keep it down,” Barnes hisses, aware of Pierce and his men scuffling about deeper in the tomb.  
“No, no you’re right,” Steven casts the lantern around. “Look at all this! These paintings are hurried, you see? There’s no detail, no artistry. And these goods, they’re all well-worn. They weren’t created for burial purposes, they were used in life, don’t you see?”  
“No, I don’t see,” Tony snipes. “You’ve got the lantern.”  
Steven huffs, walking over to cast light on his brother. “Tony, you’ve been to other digs haven’t you? Doesn’t this all look hasty? As if done in a hurry?”  
Tony grabs Steven’s wrist and pulls the lantern closer to the Ushabti. “I guess. I mean you’d expect to see more stuff.” He picks up an Ushabti and holds it up to the light. “Here, what do you make of this?”  
Steven can’t help but look at the golden statue. “It’s a funerary figure, Tony. From the look of it a soldier, or some kind of warrior?” The figure carries a shield and tiny curved blade. “They are workers in the afterlife, servants of the entombed mummy. Put it back.”  
“Why?” Tony asks, pointing to the disarray the figures are in, the smaller ones at the back knocked over and spaces at the front where the larger ones have already been taken. “If Pierce gets a souvenir why can’t I?”  
“Put it back,” Steven repeats, exasperated, and returns his attention to the mould-speckled walls. “This tomb was built in a hurry. These walls must have been painted before the plaster dried, giving mould time to grow before it was sealed shut.”  
“What’s your point?” Barnes asks with a frown.  
“My point is they were in a hurry.” Steven thinks back to the painted chamber, where they had time to write out their story. When they thought the danger had passed. “They buried the dead with the most basic of honours, but they buried him with honour. To appease the dead, to encourage him into the afterlife.”  
A thin, desperate wail echoes up from the other chamber, the one where the sarcophagus must be.  
Steven turns towards the sound. “So he wouldn’t come back.”

“Steven!” Barnes yells after him as he races down the passageway, lantern light flickering against the rough hewn walls. “Steven wait!”  
The wailing cuts off abruptly, only to be replaced by a hideous, wet crunching. Steven bursts into the antechamber, the light of half a dozen torches blinding him for a second. As he rubs away the spots of colour dancing in front of his eyes, his glasses crooked, he tries to make sense of what he is seeing.  
In the center of the cramped, crowded space lies a black granite sarcophagus, Rumlow standing over it with a crowbar in his hands, frozen in terror. Behind him is Hodge, Pierce holding him by the shoulder, using his body as a shield.  
The lid of the sarcophagus, a scorpion emblazoned across the surface, is cracked in two, and for a moment Steven thinks a mummy has been pitched out onto the floor. As he tugs his glasses back into place he realises: the body is not wrapped in linens, but dressed in shirts and pants, baggy on its withered frame. One hand is raised, as if in supplication, and where his eyes should be there are only empty sockets.  
“Oh my god,” Steven whispers, and hears a screech behind him, like nails drawn over marble.  
He spins around, lantern flying out of his hand, and there in the flickering light is the creature that has Pierce and his men cowed and terrified, that killed one of them.

It was a man, long ago, and stands tall before him. Its skin, blackened and warped, is stretched taut over its bones like old parchment. In its open mouth yellowing teeth stand prominent, with no flesh to anchor them in place. Its nose has withered away, leaving a rent between upper lip and nasal cavity, but its eyes… Its eyes are clear and bright.  
Steven lets out a scream, stumbling back to the empty sarcophagus. The creature takes a slow, shambling step towards him, hand outstretched.  
“Steven!” Barnes calls, bursting into the chamber. He sees the creature lumbering forward and lets out a horrified yell. The creature doesn’t even falter, crumbling fingers brushing against Steven’s jaw.  
Steven clenches his fist and does what he’s always done when cornered: throws a punch.  
The creatures jaw crumbles when his fist connects with it, and it flinches back, as if startled. Steven punches again, fist embedding in the ruin of its cheek and getting caught between its teeth. The creature champs down on his hand, but the teeth roll around on his knuckles, unable to gain purchase. It’s possibly the most disgusting thing Steven has ever felt and he lets out a shriek, yanking his hand free.  
Before Steven can throw another punch Barnes grabs hold of him with one hand, hauling him back. In the other hand is his revolver, and he takes aim at the creatures skull before pulling the trigger. 

The bullet shatters the left side of the creatures skull, and it lets out a piercing shriek. On the far side of the casket Rumlow finally comes to his senses and pulls out his gun, emptying the chamber into the creature as it staggers back against the wall, its shoulder and hip blasting apart under the onslaught.  
Barnes hauls Steven back towards the doorway, shoving him into the tunnel and grabbing a torch as the sound of gunfire echoes off the chamber walls.  
“Run!” he yells, and for once Steven listens, racing through the gloom to the outer chamber.  
Barnes takes a detour to grab Tony by the collar, forcing him up the tunnel with Steven, and after a few panicked, blundering minutes of crashing through the darkness they find themselves out on the open air.  
“What the hell?” Tony wriggles out of Barnes’ grip, taking in Steven’s pale face and Barnes’ panic. “What’s going on?”  
“There was a…” Steven sits down heavily on a fallen pillar. His chest feels oddly tight, his heart hammering against his ribs. “It was a…”  
“It was a mummy,” Barnes says, sounding shocked as he searches around for his cat.  
“No, no,” Steven sits up, holding out his hand. “There has to be a reasonable explanation for-”  
“There was a mummy!” Barnes snaps, his voice rising an octave. “And you punched it in the face!”  
Steven scowls, too rattled to take being yelled at. “Well you shot it in the head!”  
Tony looks back and forth at the pair of them, and opens his stolen whisky.

Hodge is the first of Pierce’s men to scramble up into the open air, his red face coated in dust and debris.  
“What the hell was that thing?” he asks no one in particular, before snatching the whisky out of Tony’s hand.  
“Hey!” Tony calls, but Hodge is too busy trying to down the whole thing to listen.  
Pierce surfaces next, followed by Rollins and Rumlow, and it occurs to Steven that yesterday there had been more men than this in Pierce’s employ.  
“What the fuck?” Rumlow yells, turning around aimlessly. “What the hell just happened?”  
“Batroc,” Rollins rasps, pointing back to the tomb. “It grabbed hold of him and it… it sucked him dry.”  
“Calm down,” Pierce snaps, catching sight of Hodge.  
“An’ Sitwell too,” Rollins adds, wiping his forehead with a hand still clutching his gun.  
Pierce strides over to Hodge and yanks the bottle out of his hand, slapping him open-palmed across the face. “Get a hold of yourself!” he snarls, and Hodge whines like a dog.  
Barnes, who had disappeared into the ruins in search of his cat comes sloping back to the camp with Al in his arms. He points up to the city walls. “We got company.”  
Steven follows the line of his finger, and sees the Jubari surrounding them.

*

“You were warned,” the leader barks, leaning right into Tony’s face.  
He leans back a little, trying not to look intimidated. “Uh. Personal space?”  
The leader stalks around the remnants of the camp, regarding each of them in turn as he speaks. “You were told to leave this place or die,” he continues. “Instead you have unleashed a creature buried for nearly four thousand years.”  
“We didn’t unleash it,” Barnes points to Hodge. “They did.”  
“Silence!” The leader points his spear at Barnes, who moves his cat out of its path. “Or I will cut out your tongue and make you eat it.”  
“We were leaving,” Barnes mumbles, keeping his tongue safely behind his teeth.  
“The creature is no more,” Pierce says, stepping forward. “My men and I took care of it.”  
The Jabari swings around to face him. “Are you really so stupid?” he snarls. “No mortal weapon can kill the creature.”  
“Yes, well our mortal weapons are a bit more advanced that a, ah, pointy stick,” Pierce looks down at his spear before turning to Rumlow, who holds up his revolvers.  
“Got ‘im with both barrels.”  
The Jabari snorts, dismissing him, and turns back to Barnes. “Leave this place,” he warns. “Leave before he kills you all.”  
The cat in Barnes’ arms lets out a soft yowl. “If I say something will you cut out my tongue?”  
The leader brandishes his spear, but waves the tip in a ‘go on’ motion.  
“What will you do?”  
“Stop it.” The words are clipped, defiant. “We will find a way to return him to his prison before he can fully reform.” He prods Barnes in the gut with the spear. “You imbeciles will leave. Carry only what you brought with you, take nothing from this place, lest the creature follow after you, and reclaim what is his.”

*

The words of the Jabari leader stay with Steven long after they have left the city.  
Barnes had shoved him and Tony unceremoniously back to the camp and the waiting camels, and no one had resisted, climbing onto their mounts and leaving the ruins, quiet and furtives as thieves in the night.  
By the time they had struck out into the desert Pierce and his men were racing into the desert on horseback, half their supplies abandoned in their haste. The blankets and tin cans and empty bottles that had been strewn around their camp left for the sands to reclaim as they made their way to the river.  
Steven can still picture the sarcophagus bathed in the flickering light cast by oil lanterns. Broken, the lid cracked in two. It can no longer imprison the creature, or what is left of it, lurking somewhere in the tomb. How will the Jabari contain it? How will they stop it?  
He closes his eyes, and hears the voice of the ape-masked leader.  
_Understand this. It will never sleep, never eat, never stop until the world is in flames._  
When he opens his eyes again an afterimage remains, one he cannot blink away. The Jabari gathering around the tomb, proud and upright and doomed to failure.


	7. The Eye of Horus

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Steven,” Bucky says softly, placating. “I’m grateful for what you did for me. But if you go back out there that thing will kill you.” He rests the flat of his hand on the trunk, a scant inch away from Steven’s. “I’m asking you to stay out of this. Stay.” He pauses, tongue darting out to wet his lip. “With me.”

It should be a relief to return to Cairo whole and unharmed, but no one is celebrating, least of all Steven.  
He had yelled non-stop as they had left the city, bending Bucky’s ear about leaving the Jabari to their doom, about doing the right thing. He fell silent with the setting sun, when Pierce and his men joined their march, and spoke not a word as they travelled through the night. He didn’t utter a sound come morning, or when they reached the city at last.  
The two teams elect to part ways on arriving at the city gates, though Pierce gestures for Bucky to speak with him first. Steven gives him a foul look when Bucky orders his camel down, climbing to the ground and letting Pierce take him to one side.  
“You showed fortitude when faced with that… thing,” Pierce says mildly, Rumlow glaring at them both.  
Bucky is getting tired of being glared at. But it’s Steven’s silence that really bothers him.  
“Uh-huh,” he says, noncommittal.  
“I find myself-” Pierce makes a show of searching for the word. “-understaffed at present, and in need of someone as quick and resourceful as yourself.”  
“Are you offering me a job?” Bucky asks flatly.  
“Yes.” Pierce flashes him a brittle smile. “You would be paid well and receive, let’s say, 5% of the takings from any future expeditions.”  
“Hey!” Rollins shouts. “That’s twice as much as I get.”  
“Because you’re half as competent,” Pierce snaps.  
Bucky snorts, backing away. “Thank you for the offer,” he says, returning to the waiting camel. “But no thanks.”  
“You’re making a mistake,” Pierce calls after him.  
Bucky moves Al out of the way before getting into the saddle, and urges the camel up to its feet.  
“Here’s a little bit of advice,” he calls over to Rumlow. “Whatever you’ve got tucked away in those packs of yours? Throw them into the river, then get the hell out of Africa. It ain’t worth dying for.”  
Rumlow spits in his direction, and Bucky puts his back to him, leading the camels north into the city.

* 

The Stark household is on the west side of the Nile, in sight of the Babylon Fortress. Bucky keeps watch as Steven dismounts his camel, nodding absently as Tony rattles on about selling them, getting some of their lost money back. There had been no talk about what will happen when they returned to Cairo, if Bucky was expected to stick around, or make himself scarce now the expedition was finished. From the way Steven was acting he didn’t exactly feel welcome.  
Steven picks up his bags and shoulders his way into the house, leaving Tony standing in the street, arms folded across his chest.  
“Is he…” Bucky starts slowly, nodding in the direction Steven went. “Is he always so…”  
“Oh god, yes!” Tony bursts out. “I mean when it’s happening you think the yelling is the worst, but radio silence is when you’re really in trouble.”  
Al stands up in the saddle and stretches, arching his spine. He jumps down to the street, and goes wandering off in search of trouble. Bucky feels a tiny prickle of jealousy, that he can come and go as he pleases, but then everything would be easier if you were a cat.  
“When I borrowed his first edition of The Papyrus of Ani he didn’t speak to me for three weeks,” Tony says with a frown. “And he stole every left shoe I owned, buried them out somewhere in the desert.”  
“How much did you get for the book?” Bucky asks, trying not to smile.  
“Not as much as it cost to replace those shoes,” Tony says ruefully.  
Bucky tries to disguise his laugh as a cough, and scratches his nose as Tony’s frown deepens.  
“He’s gonna go back there, isn’t he?” Bucky already knows the answer.  
Tony puffs up his cheeks and blows out. “Yup.”

Bucky climbs down from the camel, landing on legs numb from days of travel, and stomps up to the door. He would bet his last dollar that Steven wouldn’t answer if he knocked, so shoves the door open and heads inside.  
The house is dark and still, but for a determined scuffling upstairs. Bucky clomps up the stairs, not bothering to hide his presence, and finds what he can only assume is Steven’s room. There are shelves of books against every wall, and a dresser in one corner, the doors thrown open as Steven rummages around inside. On the bed there is a steamer trunk, an armful of books already piled up in it.  
“Steven,” Bucky sighs, reaching into the trunk and picking out a couple of books. Dry tomes on Egyptian history written by people who’ve never walked the sands themselves. He puts them on the nearest shelf, slotting them in a gap above the neat rows of books.  
“Don’t _Steven_ me,” comes the clipped retort. Steven emerges from the dresser with a bundle of clothing, and drops them in the trunk. “You heard what the Jabari said.”  
“Yeah.” Bucky fetches a couple more books from the trunk while Steven’s back is turned and puts them on the shelf. “He told us to stay out of it.”  
Steven looks up from the chest of drawers he’s searching through. “We are responsible for its resurrection.”  
“No we’re not,” Bucky counters. “Pierce and his guys were the ones who dug it up, and I don’t see them rushing back to help out.”  
Steven throws a bundle of socks into the trunk as Bucky pulls out an itchy looking wool suit. “It will never stop,” he says, echoing the warning of the Jabari. “It will never rest.”

Those damn words have been rolling around in Bucky’s head the whole journey. That and the last glimpse of the Jabari, standing guard over the entrance to the tomb.  
“I thought you didn’t believe in mummies and curses,” he says, throwing the suit back in the dresser. Steven scoops it up before it even lands, throwing it back into the trunk with a pointed look.  
“Well, coming face to face with one does make you reassess these things,” he says, pulling out the books Bucky had shelved and throwing them back into the trunk.  
“Forget it.” Bucky grabs an armful of socks and underwear and shoves it into an open drawer. “You’re not going back.”  
“Yes I am,” Steven says, throwing a book at Bucky. He yelps, catching it before it whacks him in the face, and gives Steven a dirty look.  
“Watch the face.” He puts the book on a shelf, and tries to reason with the damned fool. “You heard what they said. No mortal weapon can defeat it.”  
“Well then we’ll just have to find some _im_ mortal weapons!”  
“What do you mean ‘we’?”  
Steven flings another book in the trunk and slams the lid shut, leaning on it as he turns to Bucky. “It will never stop, Barnes. Not until we are all dead.”  
Bucky bristles. It’s true, and he has no argument against that. But he’s not going back, not for anything or anyone.  
“Steven,” he says softly, placating. “I’m grateful for what you did for me. But if you go back out there that thing will kill you.” He rests the flat of his hand on the trunk, a scant inch away from Steven’s. “I’m asking you to stay out of this. Stay.” He pauses, tongue darting out to wet his lip. “With me.”  
The answer is plain on Steven’s face before he even utters a word.  
“No.”

*

After Thinis Bucky and his men had been reluctant to go their separate ways. They had survived the Berber warriors together, survived the cursed ruins together, survived the desert together, and when they finally parted company they didn’t travel too far from Cairo.  
Maybe it wasn’t such a good thing. Maybe Dernier would have been happier back in Marseille, and Falsworth in England. Bucky recalls seeing Dernier and Jones again with a rush of fondness. They had seemed happy enough, and sure as hell Bucky wouldn’t want to be back in Indiana.  
Bucky curses his own stupidity as he walks. Steven had never liked him, he’d just been a means to an end, a way to get to his precious lost city. The drunken fumbling by the campfire had been nothing more than sating his curiosity, a scientific endeavor that must have been found wanting.  
Bucky sniffs, scrubbing his nose on his sleeve. Like always, when he gets knocked down he turns to what he knows, the things that got him through before, and treads a well-worn path through Cairo’s winding streets until he finds the _ahwa_.

Cairo isn’t a dry city, and though Allah forbids drunkenness, there are plenty of places for a man with a few coins to get acquainted with oblivion. Among the hotel bars pouring overpriced liquor for tourists and would-be explorers there are ahwa - coffeehouses - and it’s to one of those Bucky heads towards.  
He shoulders open the door, walking into a room that has been the only home he’s known in three years. The walls are tiled, the glaze cracked and chipped, and every available inch of space is crammed with old tables and chairs, spilling out onto the street. He nods to the men who turn his way, wary of newcomers. Seeing a familiar face, they turn back to their dominos and backgammon, the click of ivory on wood not enough to mask their making deals over cups of thick, sweet coffee.  
In a corner is a brazier of hot coals for shisha, a few figures sitting over a pipe around it.  
The tension in Bucky’s shoulders eases a little, and he walks up to the bar.  
“Bucky?” The barman leans over the counter to give him a one-armed hug. “Well I’ll be damned, I heard a rumour you weren’t dead.”  
“Not yet at least,” Bucky agrees. “How you doing, Monty?”  
“Quite dreadful, old chap.” Falsworth gives Bucky a thump on the back and lets him slide onto a stool, setting to work on making him coffee without having to be asked. “It’s too damned hot out here.”  
“Well, you could always go back to England,” Bucky smiles as Falsworth passes him a little glass of coffee.  
“God no,” Falsworth grins back. “Too damned cold.”

The routine is familiar and comforting, Falsworth complains about the weather and Bucky drinks his coffee. He wouldn’t change it for the world.  
“So the word is you went back,” Falsworth says softly. “Why on earth would you do that?”  
Bucky is here to get drunk and forget the existence of Steven Rogers, so he ignores the question and offers up one of his own. “Who’s been talking?”  
Falsworth nods to another figure slumped at the bar, one finger curled around the stem of a martini glass.  
Bucky downs his coffee and swivels around in his seat to get a better look.  
“Tony,” he says wearily. “I wondered where you’d gotten to.”  
Tony straightens up, and swirls the dregs of his cocktail around in his glass before knocking it back.  
“Another,” he says, shoving the glass in Falsworth’s direction.  
“Can you pay for it?”  
Tony scowls, withdrawing the glass. “Look, it’s not my fault. I got screwed over, okay?”  
“What’s going on?” Bucky asks as Tony hunches over his glass, as though he could get wasted on fumes.  
“Your friend here sold a little gold statue to one of the regulars last week.” Falsworth gives Tony a disdainful look. “And came skulking in here to try and fob off another gold-painted piece of tat, but the gentleman in question died earlier today.”  
“Well, that’s unfortunate,” Bucky huffs.  
“Highly,” Falsworth agrees. “It’s quite perplexing, the doctor said there wasn’t a drop of moisture left in his body. Shrivelled up like a prune, he was.”  
Bucky clicks his tongue, tilting his head over to Tony, and Falsworth sets to work on a fresh martini.

“Did you talk him out of it?” Tony asks, eyes on the liquor being poured into his glass.  
There’s a lot Bucky could say, but he doesn’t. “No.”  
“Yeah, didn’t think so.” Tony takes a sip of martini, his eyelids flickering, and sits back on his stool. “He’s always been principled, don’t know where it comes from. Certainly not my side of the family.” Bucky could point out that with Steven being adopted that’s not surprising, but he keeps his mouth shut. “The Starks, now. The Starks were pragmatic. Hey, we’ve got a kid, you’ve got a kid. Something happens to us, you’ll take him and we’ll do the same for yours.” Tony blows out a breath, picking up his glass. “Joe Rogers wouldn’t have forced me into the army.”  
There is meaning behind those words, more than Bucky is ready to unpack this sober. He wonders how different things would have been if George Barnes had been pragmatic.  
“How did they die?” He asks. “The Rogers?”  
“Curse.” Tony’s words are clipped, brutal in their scarcity. “The official record says engine failure, but it was a curse.” He swallows the rest of his cocktail. “Dug up something in the desert that didn’t want to be dug up.”  
Bucky hums, looking down at his coffee. Things start to slot into place. Of course Steven is going back there. Before the thought can reach its inevitable conclusion the door bursts open, and the sounds of commotion spill in from the street.  
“Fetch a doctor!” someone shouts, and in the distance someone starts to scream.

Bucky is on his feet before the door has swung shut again, grabbing Tony by the collar and hauling him out onto the street with him. Tony, still clutching his empty glass, loudly protests, but Bucky keeps moving, following the chaos to its source.  
There is a dead body lying in the middle of the street, a small crowd of horrified onlookers gathering around it. Though there are a number of familiar faces to be seen, all Bucky’s attention is on the corpse. Falworth’s words ring in his ears - _shrivelled up like a prune_ \- as he stares down at the withered husk of a man, and when he closes his eyes he is back in Thinis, staring in horror at the dead body in the tomb, its papery skin drawn taut over bone.  
When he opens his eyes again he is back in Cairo, and Rumlow is kneeling over the body, tugging on a baggy sleeve.  
“Jack?” he says, almost to himself.  
“What happened?” Tony asks, looking around.  
“Sandstorm.” Hodges, cowering behind Pierce, speaks up. “Sand came up out of nowhere, just rose up around him and then it was gone and he… and he…” Hodges, unable to give voice to what he had seen, turns and runs away down the street, as though the hounds of hell were at his heels.  
“Fool,” Pierce mutters. “We’re well rid of him.”  
Bucky’s heart crawls up into his throat. He’s seen sand move like that before, back in Thinis. He’s seen the sand rise up, when the air was still, and try to engulf him.  
“Steven.”

Despite Bucky dragging Tony through half of Old Cairo to get back there, Steven isn’t remotely happy to see either of them. He has been busy in their absence, the street in front of the house stacked with cases and bags. Bucky allows himself a moment to wonder how the hell he had planned to get it all onto a camel, before spotting Al curled up on one of the bags, dozing in the sun. Little turncoat.  
“Don’t start,” Steven snaps before either Bucky or Tony open their mouths. “I’m not changing my mind.”  
“Rollins is dead,” Tony says before Bucky has the chance to. “They said it was some kind of dust storm, came out of nowhere and…” He turns to Bucky, out of words and looking for more.  
“Sitwell,” Bucky says, seeing Steven’s eyes widen in understanding. “Same thing that happened to Sitwell.”  
“Oh my god,” Steven murmurs. “The Jabari. If they have failed then there will be no stopping the creature. We have to do something.”  
This time Bucky can’t argue, and gives Steven a terse little nod. “Tell us what needs doing.”  
Steven rubs his hand over his mouth. “We need help.”  
“Well that’s putting it mildly,” Bucky says, peeling Al from his napping place and hefting the cat onto his shoulder.  
“There’s only one person with the knowledge to help us stop this creature,” Steven says decisively. “The Curator.”  
Bucky nods, okay so there’s a plan. “Alright. Lead the way.”  
Steven heads off down the street, leaving his bags strewn around his door, and Bucky shifts the cat around on his shoulder and sets after him.  
“Uh,” Tony calls after them, surrounded by Steven’s abandoned luggage. “Didn’t he fire you?”

*

Steven avoids the main entrance, circling around the back of the building and opening a little used service door. Beyond lies a large storeroom, freestanding shelves piled with crates and boxes of items to be catalogued, carefully packed in straw.  
“What the hell is this place?” Bucky asks as he comes face to face with an Ibis-headed figure. Al, still wrapped around him like a scarf, let’s out a curious chirp. “Paws off, little man,” Bucky chides.  
“It’s the Cairo Museum of Antiquities,” Steven says by way of explanation. “The director is the foremost authority on Ancient Egyptian mysticism, and has written a number of-”  
“So he’s you but better paid?” Bucky interrupts, and Steven goes pink around the ears.  
“I wouldn’t put it quite like that,” Steven mumbles, sounding flustered. “But yes, he’s a scholar.”  
“And bird-face here?” Bucky taps the long, curved beak of the statue.  
“That is _Djehuty_.” Bucky gives him a blank look. “Thoth. The Ancient Egyptian god of wisdom and writing. I’ve told Mr Fury a hundred times that it should be this statue in the library, but he insists on having _Anoup_ in there, though why a psychopomp should be housed in a library-”  
“Okay, two questions,” Bucky interrupts. “What’s an Anoup?”  
“Anubis.” Steven regards him critically. “You know for a supposed expert on lost cities you don’t seem to know much about Ancient Egypt. Anubis was the lord of the underworld, and led the dead to the afterlife.”  
“Yeah, well my skills are more surviving them than studying them.” Bucky frowns. “The jackal guy?”  
“There’s an argument to be made that it’s actually the Egyptian golden wolf-” Bucky glares, and Steven catches himself. “Yes, the jackal guy. What was the second question?”  
“Why are we sneaking around in the back?”  
Steven blanches, and scratches the back of his head for a minute longer than necessary. “I. Um. The last time I saw him he fired me.”  
“Great,” Bucky says, brittle and sharp. “That’s just. Great.”

Steven leads him through the backrooms to the Curator's office, and gives a perfunctory knock on the door before pushing it open, not waiting for an invitation.  
“Mr Fury,” Steven starts talking before he’s made it through the door. “Before you say anything I-” He stops, and Bucky walks into him, Al letting out a yowl and digging in his claws to keep from being knocked down.  
Bucky looks over his shoulder, taking in the neatly ordered office and the desk stacked with papers. Behind it sits an imposing figure with a patch over one eye, the other looking out on the world and seeing only disappointment. On the other side of the desk, holding several photographs, Bucky’s own among them, is the warden.  
“Sam?” Steven says, scarcely believing what he’s seeing. “What are you doing here?”  
Bucky is a little less trusting than Steven, and pulls out his revolver. “Yeah, Sam. Where ya been hiding?”  
“Put that damn thing away,” Fury says, flicking his fingers at the gun. He sounds tired, impatient, like a man with bigger problems than some idiot waving a revolver around. Bucky finds himself holstering the gun without protest.  
“We searched for you,” Steven says quietly, sounding betrayed, and to his credit Wilson looks chagrined.  
“You really want to know what he’s doing here?” Fury’s lip curls. “You sure you don’t want to just shoot us?”  
“I don’t know, you’re making it pretty tempting.”  
“Shush.” Steven smacks the back of his hand against Bucky’s gut, making him yelp, and gives Fury a decisive nod. “We’re listening.”

Fury nods to Sam. “Mr Wilson and I are part of an ancient secret society, the Eye of Horus. For over four thousand years we have watched over the city of Thinis, sworn to keep its secrets and prevent the creature from ever arising.”  
“Please, spare me the children’s stories,” Steven folds his arms across his chest. “What’s really going on?”  
In answer Fury pulls up the patch covering his left eye, revealing a tattoo around his milky, blind eye. Black lines curve around his eyelids in a pattern identical to the tattoo over Sam’s left eye. “For thirty nine generations we have watched over the city.” He lowers the patch again. “And because of you, we have failed.”  
Bucky clenches his fists, turning to glare at Wilson. “You were there! In the desert, when my regiment was killed,” he snarls. “I saw you all watching. You were there.”  
“I was,” Wilson admits. “We could have killed you where you stood, and no one would have been the wiser.”  
“But instead you let the desert do your dirty work,” Bucky snaps back. “No wonder you were so set on having me hanged when you saw I was still alive.”  
Steven looks horrified. “That’s why?” Sam nods, and to his credit there is no pride in it. “You’d kill innocent people?”  
“To stop the creature from being discovered?” Fury barks. “Yes.”

Steven turns away, looking sickened, and wipes his hand over his mouth. Bucky takes a step towards the table, glancing at the photographs in Wilson’s hand. Pierce’s men, Steven and Tony, and himself.  
“What’s this?” he sneers. “Your to-do list?”  
Wilson ignores the barbed remark. “I fear Pierce and his men did not heed my warning, and stole grave goods from the tomb.”  
“What goods?” Steven asks over his shoulder, still not ready to look at Fury or Wilson.  
“Ushabti,” Wilson replies. “Golden statues that contain the ka of his generals, his most loyal soldiers.”  
“What’s a ka?” Bucky asks.  
“The life force,” Steven says, taking off his glasses and cleaning the lenses on the hem of his shirt. “At death it separates from the body. I have read that, if captured and contained, it can be used to prevent the dead from entering the afterlife.” He slips his glasses back on, looking troubled. “Or given new life in the body of a sacrifice.”  
“The first thing the creature will do is regenerate,” Fury explains. “By sucking the life force out of any fools who stumble into his path. Then he will rebuild his army.”  
“He has already regenerated,” Steven says slowly, turning to face them. “In the tomb. He took Sitwell, left nothing but a husk.”  
“That wouldn’t be enough to fully regenerate,” Wilson says, trying to reassure him.  
“Rollins,” Bucky says, pulling Al off his shoulder and into his arms. He needs the touch of something warm and alive, and his fingers tremble as he sinks them into the soft white fur. “We found him out on the street in Old Cairo. What was left of him.”  
“Oh god,” Steven whispers, and Fury curses vehemently.

“Did you take anything from the tomb?” Wilson asks, and Steven shakes his head emphatically.  
“No.” He shifts from foot to foot, restless and scared. “I took notes, that’s all.”  
When Wilson turns to him Bucky glares back. “I ain’t that stupid.”  
“Then how did this guy wind up dead?” Wilson holds up a grainy picture of a typical explorer, down to the pith helmet and khakis.  
“That’s Justin,” Steven says, grabbing the picture. “Justin Hammer. He’s been on digs with Tony.”  
“He was found dead this morning,” Wilson says, and Bucky leans in to get a closer look.  
“Huh,” he mutters, straightening up. “So it was real.”  
Somehow Fury’s scowl deepens. “What was real?”  
“I picked up an artifact a few weeks back, someone claimed it was from Thinis.” Al digs his claws into Bucky’s shirt, tired of being held, and Bucky lets him climb back up to his shoulder. “I wasn’t convinced, but figured best to be safe, right? I was gonna pass it on to a buddy of mine to bury out on the desert-” he gives Steven a sharp look. “-but someone stole it before I got to hand it over.”  
“Tony.” Steven closes his eyes, looking pained. “He sells pieces to Justin when he’s short of money.”

The sting of guilt Bucky feels is unfair. It wasn’t his fault, he was trying to get rid of the damn thing. But he feels guilt all the same. “How do we kill it?” he asks.  
Fury shakes his head. “It can’t be killed. Four thousand years ago Menes himself sealed it in a basalt sarcophagus, and the city it was buried in abandoned.” He sighs, sitting back in his seat. “I don’t think it’ll fall for the same trick twice.”  
“We have to warn the others,” Steven says abruptly.  
‘Why?’ sits on the tip of Bucky’s tongue, but he doesn’t give voice to it. It must show in his eyes, because Steven turns to him.  
“Yes, I know they’re terrible, but we have to help.”  
Wilson nods. “If they do have the missing ushabti, if the creature is after them, we need to find them first. Destroy the ushabti before it can reclaim them and regain its full strength.”  
Bucky works his jaw, gnawing on the inside of his cheek. “Fine. Last I saw them, they were in Old Cairo. Can we bring them here? Will they be safe?”  
“Nowhere is safe,” Fury snorts. “But yes, bring them back here. There are certain wards, protections we can try. It might buy us some time.”  
It’s hard not to sound doubtful. “Spells?” Bucky says, incredulous. “You mean spells?”  
Fury leans forward, hands folded on the desk in front of him. “It’s a four thousand year old creature that cannot die,” he says slowly. “What else do you suggest?”

Okay, so put like that Bucky can’t argue. He gives a brief nod and turns for the door.  
“I’ll go with you,” Wilson says, walking over to join them. He glances at Steven before looking back at Bucky. “If I am welcome.”  
“Sam?” Steven’s voice is barely above a whisper. “Would you have killed me, Sam? I’ve seen Thinis, wouldn’t that be reason enough to kill me?”  
“No,” Wilson answers before Steven has finished speaking, and goes up a little in Bucky’s estimation. “I don’t kill my friends.”  
His eyes are on Bucky, and it is said as a challenge, not a peace offering. Bucky shrugs, he’s not in a position to make demands, not with a monster out there somewhere.  
“The more the merrier,” he says, dry as the desert. “Let’s go.”


	8. A Winding Chain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Tony, what have you done?” he whispers.  
> Tony holds out his hand, looking guilty and scared. “Give me the bag, Stevie.”

There is no time to pause and take stock of the situation as Barnes leads them in a race through the streets of Old Cairo, his pale cat clinging to his shoulder, pink nose in the air. There is no time for Steven to work through all that has happened in a scant handful of days, to reassess what he knows of the world.   
_The curse, the curse_ rolls around in his mind like a bowling ball, smashing into any coherence or reasoning and shattering all that he thought he knew.  
He should be more like Barnes, Steven thinks to himself. Barnes seems to leap over whatever obstacles life throws at him, nimble and sure-footed as the cat he takes everywhere. When faced with the undead he tries to kill it, actually tries to kill it, and not do something stupid like punch it in the face.  
And then there is Sam. Sam who is keeping pace with Barnes as Steven chases their heels. Sam who tried to kill him, who would have left them all for dead had they found nothing in Thinis. When Sam insisted on coming with them Barnes didn’t even flinch, and just like that everything was fine. In the face of a greater threat he just… put it aside.  
Steven has never thought of himself as petty. Stubborn, spiteful, willful and yes, okay, reckless at times, but never petty. And if Barnes can trust Sam then so can he.

His scattered, wheeling thoughts are interrupted as they come to a halt outside a coffee shop, one of those tawas that Tony is so fond of. Barnes speaks to a man standing in the doorway, British from the sound of him. The hurried conversation ends in them being directed elsewhere, and before Steven has caught his breath they are off again, racing through the back alleys to a hotel overlooking the Nile.  
Rumlow is pacing around out front, sucking on a cigarette. Steven opens his mouth to get his attention, but all he can manage is a breathless wheeze. Hefting books around in the library may have given him some upper body strength, but he has little stamina when it comes to running.  
Barnes isn’t even out of breath, damn him, and yells across the courtyard. “Hey Rumlow!”  
Rumlow drops his cigarette on the floor, crushing it with the heel of his boot. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”  
“Mr Rumlow,” Steven rasps. “You need to come with us.”  
“I said get fucked!” Rumlow pulls a tin out of his back pocket and cracks it open, his trembling hands shaking cigarettes onto the dirt. “Been nothing but trouble since the first time I laid eyes on you,” he mutters, picking up the cigarettes and cursing as they crumble in his too-tight grip. “First the boat burns down, then those goddamn ape men come after us.” He manages to get a cigarette lit and in his mouth, pocketing the tin and glaring at them. “And that fucking mummy comes to life and you’re there too.”  
“Mr Rumlow, you’re not safe here,” Steven insists. “You need to fetch the others and come back with us to the museum. We can protect you.”  
“Did you protect Jack?” Rumlow snarls. “No way in hell I’m coming with you freaks.”

The hotel door opens and Pierce looks out from the top step, Hodge cowering behind him.  
“Gentlemen?” Pierce says, his smile all teeth and no warmth. “What seems to be the problem?”  
“They want us to go with ‘em,” Rumlow yells. “Fuck that.”  
There is a faint rumbling beneath Steven’s feet. Quiet at first, it builds as Rumlow hurls abuse at them.   
The hotel windows rattle in their frames and Sam curses under his breath, staring down at the ground as if searching for something.   
“You need to come with us,” Steven tries to explain, but Pierce’s expression is already shuttered.  
Barnes’ cat yowls, claws digging into his shoulder. He reacts instinctively, hooking a finger in Steven’s collar and pulling him over to the hotel entrance. Steven needs little encouragement to ascend the stone steps leading to the door.   
“Did you take an ushabti?” Steven demands as the ground begins to shake.  
“A what?” Rumlow snarls, too angry to notice what is happening beneath his feet, or how Sam follows them to higher ground.  
“A statue,” Barnes says as Steven holds his hands a span apart, sketching its size and shape. “A little gold figure.”  
Rumlow flicks his lit cigarette at Barnes’ face, making him flinch, and Steven tries to reason with Pierce.  
“The creature. The one you found in Thinis. If you took one of the ushabti you must destroy it.”  
“You’ve been in the sun too long, Mr Rogers,” Pierce says, retreating into the building. “The heat has gone to your head.”

The rumbling suddenly stops, and a mound starts to form in the dirt to the side of Rumlow. It swell up with alarming speed, a pyramid in miniature, and he lets out a shout, kicking at the heap. He stomps the mound flat, swearing up a blue streak.  
“What the-” he snarls. “Fucking anthill-”  
Now the rumbling has stopped Steven is aware of what was underneath it, a clattering clicking sound, like shaking a bag of pistachio shells. Something pushes its way out of the dirt at Rumlow’s heel, its carapace glittering blue-green in the sunlight. It scuttles along the ground on tiny black legs, turning in little circles. A beetle.  
Another pops out of the ground, and another, in ones and twos and tens and dozens, more and more of them bursting out of the hard earth. They converge around Rumlow’s feet, an iridescent mass of brittle, shining little bodies that Rumlow kicks away. They roll in the dirt before righting themselves and scuttling back to join the swelling mass, clambering up his body as he yells and tries to shake them off.  
In seconds he is covered completely, a vaguely human shaped chitinous mass in constant motion, and the clicking, chittering sound grows louder and louder.  
“Rumlow!” Steven shouts, moving down the stairs towards him. Sam grabs him by the arm, pulling him back.  
“You can’t help him,” he warns, looking horrified.  
Steven refuses to believe that, pulling free, but before he can take another step the beetles tumble to the ground in a sudden wash, and Rumlow is gone.  
“Get inside!” Sam yells as the beetles start to mill around, feelers waving in the air. “Quickly!”

“What the hell?” Barnes yells as he drags Steven with him into the lobby.   
Sam slams the door shut after them, taking a look around the hotel reception. Hodge is halfway up the stairs, no doubt in search of refuge. Pierce, looking flustered, moves towards the stairs after him.  
“Kepri,” Sam says, locking the door, though Steven doubts it will make a difference.  
“Scarabs?” Steven frowns, wincing as Barnes drags him up the stairs after Pierce. “Scarab beetles?”  
“The creature is regaining his powers,” Sam warns. “If he has dominion over the kepri, then his other gifts will soon follow.”  
“Gifts?” Barnes hauls Steven onto the landing, his eyes on the lobby for any sign of scarabs. “What gifts?”  
“He will be able to control sand itself, move it to his will.”  
Barnes pales. “Pretty sure he can do that already.”  
Before Sam can answer there is a muffled scream from down the hall, and Steven doesn’t think about the danger, just goes running after it. A door at the end of the hall, and beyond someone is screaming. Steven tries the handle, expecting it to be locked, and stumbles in.

The room is in chaos, the bed overturned and a dresser knocked over. A steamer trunk has been tipped onto the floor, the contents spilling out. Gusts of wind tug at the billowing curtains covering the open window.  
Hodge cowers on his hands and knees amongst the detritus, scrabbling around in search of something.  
“It’s here, I swear!” he sobs, searching desperately. “Please! Please…”  
Steven looks over at the window and sees a shape blocking out the sun. The creature stands amid the drapes, mouth open in a silent howl. It’s body is a horrible patchwork of flesh and skin; Rumlow’s lower jaw and Sitwell’s stumpy fingers and Rollins’ greasy black hair.  
The creature stares down at Steven, and finds its voice. The sounds it utters fills his skull, a clamour of ancient drums that overwhelms the thrum of his own heart. A language familiar and strange, he knows the shape of it, has studied it all his life, but to hear it is nothing less than terrifying. Each word is a staccato beat strung on a winding chain that wraps around his soul, pulling taut.  
Hodge finally unearths his stolen ushabti, brandishing it at the creature. “Here! Take it!” he shouts, breaking the thrall that had fallen over Steven, and throwing it at the creatures feet.  
It bends down to retrieve its prize before stalking towards them, its mismatched body lumbering ungainly across the room.  
Steven clenches his fists reflexively, shifting his weight, and wishes he had a weapon.

“Hey!” Barnes bursts into the room, letting out a yell when he sees the creature advancing.  
Steven, moving without thought, reaches back to blindly grasp at him. “Barnes!” he yells as Barnes shoves past him into the creatures path. His cat has risen up on his shoulders, spine arched and fur bristling.  
“Get him, Al!” Barnes shouts, and the cat launches itself at the creature’s face.  
The creature howls as the cat clamps onto his head, teeth sinking into the bridge of his nose, claws raking deep gouges in his chest.  
Steven flinches, expecting it to grab the cat by the scruff and hurl it to one side, but no such thing happens. Instead the creatures wails, frightened and in pain as Al claws its scalp, back legs punching through its patchwork chest to kick through its ribs.   
Barnes pulls Steven back to the wall, slamming against the plaster hard enough to knock the breath from his lungs. The creature utters a guttural cry, stumbling back towards the window, and in the space between one step to the next its body crumbles to sand.   
Al drops to the floor, landing lightly on all four paws as the dust rises up in a dervish, spinning towards the open window and dispersing in the wind.  
The creature defeated, Al prances across the floor, tail held high and twitching, and rolls over onto Barnes’ boots.

While Barnes scoops up his cat and starts being _offensively_ cute Steven sees Sam in the doorway, where he must have seen the whole spectacle. Hodge is still cowering on the floor, surrounded by his dirty clothes and stolen trinkets from the tomb.  
“Is it over?” Steven asks shakily. “Is it dead?”  
“Don’t think we’d be that lucky,” Bucky says, scratching the cat behind the ears. “Besides this isn’t ‘I’ve killed something’ behaviour, this is ‘I chased the big dog from down the street’ stuff.”  
Al purrs loudly, and Bucky kisses his flat head. In some way Steven is relieved, it would feel a little anticlimactic for the creature to be defeated by a slightly ragged tomcat. He feels guilty for his own relief, and slightly odd that ‘ragged tomcat’ could mean Al or his owner.  
“The creature endures,” Sam says grimly, staring out the window.  
Barnes scrubs his chin against Al’s fur. “Guess it don’t like cats.”  
“Cats are sacred,” Sam says proudly, reaching over to stroke Al between the ears. “For four thousand years they have represented justice and strength, and have been guardians of the ancient pharaohs.”  
Barnes stops making a fuss of his cat long enough to lay a hand on Steven’s arm, far too gently for him to bear.  
“You alright?” he murmurs.  
Steven cannot shake the image of the creature looming over him, or the rat-a-tat-tat of the words whispered for his ears alone.  
“I don’t know,” he says at last, torn between pushing Barnes away and pulling him closer. “I think it was…” he pauses, dragging his tongue across his lip. “I think it was speaking to me.”  
Barnes’ grip on his arm tightens almost imperceptibly. “What did it say?”  
Steven shakes his head. “I don’t know.”  
Barnes pushes his cat into Steven’s arms. “Here, you have him for a while,” he says firmly. “In case that thing comes back.”  
Steven nods, feeling numb, and Al climbs onto his jacket, draping around his neck like a scarf. Steven rubs his fingers through the cat’s soft fur as Barnes hauls Hodge to his feet and sends Sam after Pierce. There is comfort there, in the cat’s low, throaty purr. In the weight and warmth of another living creature pressed against him.   
For a moment he tastes brandy, or the memory of it, warm and rich on his tongue. Why would he think of that? He hasn’t drunk brandy in years.

*

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Pierce snorts, hammer still grasped in his hand. “Of course I’m not coming with you.”  
His rooms in the hotel are far more luxurious than Hodge’s were, and more organised. It had taken him less than a minute to retrieve his ushabti and a hammer from his toolkit.  
The gold-painted figure lies in pieces on the floor. The fired clay had shattered easily under the hammer, and with a few deft strikes been reduced to rubble.  
“Mr Pierce you have to understand,” Steven presses. “You are still in danger, even without the ushabti. The creature will come for you, you ransacked his tomb-”  
“Which it would still be buried in if I had not set out on the expedition,” Pierce says sharply. “If anything it owes me.”  
“It owes you?” Sam sneers. “This creature cares nothing for humanity. It can’t be bargained or reasoned with.”  
Pierce flicks a crumb of gold paint off his sleeve, and adjusts his collar. “I consider this matter at an end, gentlemen,” he says, his tone firm. “This expedition has been costly enough, and I am done.”  
“You have to come with us,” Steven insists, but Barnes is more direct about it, resting his hand on his holster.  
“Get your bags, Pierce,” he says grimly. “You can walk out that door or be dragged, I don’t much care which one.”  
Pierce sniffs, backing down at the direct threat. “Very well, if you insist” he murmurs, reaching for his wallet.  
Steven grasps Barnes’ sleeve, tugging hard. “One other thing.”

*

Tony isn’t at the house, though he had at least moved their bags indoors before wandering off. It doesn’t take long to find him, propping up the bar at one of his regular haunts, in conversation with the barman.  
“C’mon, Tony.” Barnes grabs him by the collar and hauls him off his barstool. “Gotta go.”  
“Gah!” Tony, torn between clinging to the bar rail and grabbing his half empty glass, goes for the glass, sloshing vermouth over his wrist. “My bag!” he yells, pointing with his free hand to the satchel leaning against the bar stool.  
“Got it,” Steven calls, picking up the bag and looping the strap over his shoulder.   
Tony raises the glass to him in thanks before sipping on the contents with the resigned air of a man who has been hauled out of many bars and finds a bit of numbing alcohol handy for what comes next.  
“Where are we going?” Tony calls over his shoulder as Barnes marches him out to where Sam is waiting with Hodge and Pierce.  
“The museum,” Steven calls back.  
“Oh great,” Tony moans, lunging to the side and grabbing a bottle of beer left on one of the outside tables.

Fury is waiting for them at the museum, casting a critical eye over the ragged assembly before him.  
“The fate of the world,” he mutters under his breath, loud enough for Steve to catch. He sucks in a breath, ready to give the Curator a piece of his mind but Al, still curled around his shoulders, chooses that moment to shove a damp pink nose in his ear. He suppresses a yelp, hauling the cat off his shoulder and thrusting him back into Barnes’s arms. The cat digs his claws into the shoulder strap of Tony’s satchel, scratching up the worn leather. Steven tuts softly, adjusting the strap so the bag rests on his hip. From the weight and the shape of whatever is rolling around in there, he’s carrying Tony’s emergency liquor.  
“Is this everyone?” Fury asks, leading them into his office and a bookcase at the far end of the room.  
“It is,” Sam confirms.  
Fury looks unconvinced, but reaches up to a statue of Thoth above the bookcase. When he touches the Ibis’ curved beak the bookcase swings back, revealing a hidden room. The walls within are covered in hieroglyphics, and examples of ancient pottery and statuary stand on plinths around the room. Tony sidles over to a gold tablet in the far corner, ever the magpie, and barely flinches when Fury slams the door closed.  
“What on earth…” Steven murmurs, walking over to the nearest wall to study the inscriptions on a mounted portion of tomb painting. In the center of the carved stone is a figure wearing the bulbed white crown of Upper Egypt. He looks over his shoulder for Barnes, eager to tell him about the image, but spies a far more interesting object across the room. “A mace head!” he says, breathless, and hurries over for a closer look.  
“In 1894 Emile Amelineau broke into the tomb of Menes.” Fury pauses, looking over at Sam. “The Eye of Horus was able to retrieve these artifacts before the Amelineau got hold of them. You are standing in what is left of the last man to defeat the creature.”

“But he didn’t defeat it,” Barnes says, putting Al down to sniff around the room. “He locked it up knowing one day it was gonna get dug up again.” He watches his cat rub up against a plinth. “We need to kill it.”  
“It can’t be killed,” Sam says, exasperated. “It’s not of this world.”  
“You saw it back at the hotel,” Barnes insists. “It was _hurt_. If it can get hurt it can be killed.”  
“It can be killed until it regains its full strength, then it will be unstoppable,” Fury agrees. He gestures to the room at large. “And if there is a way, it’s most likely to be written here somewhere.”  
Steven pauses in his studies, turning to look at Fury. He can still feel the echoes of them, the words the creature had spoken to him, a susurrus on the edge of his thoughts.  
“At the hotel,” he says slowly. “It… It _approached_ me. It tried to speak to me. I couldn’t understand it. It was, I don’t know, it was familiar but not right.” He taps the thick frames of his glasses. “Like trying to read without these, like the words were somehow out of focus.”  
No one speaks for a moment, and in the silence Steven can hear a clatter from the other side of the door, as if someone was in Fury’s office.  
“What you think you know about the Ancient Egyptian language derives from Coptic,” Fury says dismissively. “Which is derived from Demotic which was derived from Hieratic.”  
“Yes,” Steven shoves his glasses up his nose with a knuckle. “And I can read those languages, thank you.”  
“But you’ve never heard them spoken,” Fury pauses. “Until now.”  
Steven opens his mouth to argue, then shuts it again with an audible click. He won’t give Fury the satisfaction of saying he’s right. Tony, still salivating over the tablet, gives Steven a knowing look before picking it up, appraising its worth.

“What did he say?” Pierce asks, his eyes glittering. “What did the creature say?”  
Steven swallows. He can taste the syllables on his tongue, desperate to be heard, though he fears what will happen if he speaks them aloud. Will he fall into a trance, hypnotised like a mouse in the presence of a snake?  
“A…” Steven pauses to clear his throat, and tries again. “ _Ãuk ãm-nef saa en neter neb_.” He coughs, his throat aching as if scorched.   
“That didn’t sound good,” Hodges hisses.  
“There was more,” Steven clears his throat again. “ _Ãnꭓ an mit-k_. That’s all I can manage I think.”  
Fury hums, tilting his head in a grudging nod. “He said ‘Thou hast eaten the knowledge of every god’.”  
“Alright, that does sound bad,” Barnes mutters, moving over to Steven’s side.   
“What does it mean?” Steven asks. If he were alone he isn’t sure if he would dare, but with Barnes beside him, he feels less afraid.  
“It means you’re smart,” Fury says, clipped and to the point. When Steven doesn’t catch his meaning he huffs impatiently. “You’re a skilled academic. You speak multiple languages, including his own, and you would be useful to him. That’s why he wanted you.”  
“The creature had disciples before, when he walked the world,” Sam adds. “Those that spoke of his coming, and spread terror throughout the land.”  
“Well he can’t have him,” Barnes says roughly, his hand warm on Steven’s shoulder.

“What was the second thing?” Steven asks quietly. While they had been talking he had been running over the words shaking through his skull, parsing some meaning from them that filled him with dread. “There were two things I said, what was the other one?”  
By the look in Fury’s remaining eye, he must know that Steven has worked some of it out.   
“It said ‘Live, and thou shalt never die’,” he says. “The creature has offered you eternal life, as its right hand.”  
He had known, but it is still terrible to hear. And yes, some small part of him might even be tempted. All that knowledge, no longer lost to the ages. Could he stand at the devil’s side, and not in his path?  
Barnes’ thumb moves along the curve of his shoulder, a rhythmic sweep back and forth that brings him focus. Steven gestures to the wall beside him, at the hieroglyphics etched in stone.  
“So we find a way to kill it,” he says firmly. “All the ushabti that were taken from the tomb are in its hands, or destroyed.” He looks over at Pierce, who gives him a regal nod. “And it has not completely regenerated, so-”  
“Wait a minute.” Tony finally pipes up. “What was that about an ushabti?”  
He drops the tablet on the table. Fury scowls at him, but Tony takes no notice. “You said something about an ushabti, right?”  
“The statues in the tomb,” Pierce says, still bitter about destroying his own. “This thing wants them back.”  
“What?” Tony is turning paler with every passing minute. “But how does he know where they all are?”  
“He needs them to resurrect his army,” Sam explains. “He is bound to them, and they call to their master.”  
“But they’re gone,” Barnes says, reassuring. “They’ve been reclaimed or destroyed.”

Steven knows his brother, knows him better than anyone. And he knows that look in his eyes.  
“Tony, what have you done?” he whispers.  
Tony holds out his hand, looking guilty and scared. “Give me the bag, Stevie.”  
“Tony,” Steven asks again, a little louder. “What did you do?”  
“Give me the damn bag!”  
Steven shifts the satchel on his hip. There’s no bottle of liquor in there, the weight of it feels wrong. There is no slosh and gurgle when it moves. “Oh god.”  
The door explodes, raining pieces of book and splinters of wood over them all, and in the ruins stands the creature.  
“Al!” Barnes yells, but the cat is hunched behind a plinth, frightened by the explosion. He swears, ducking down to search through the wreckage for him.   
Fury yells, raising his right hand as the first words of an incantation form on his tongue, and the creature roars in defiance. It throws out its withered hands, and Fury flies backwards, slamming into the wall.  
Hodge, cowering in the ruins, makes a run for the blasted doorway. He is too slow, and the creature snatches him up, wrapping a hand around his throat. With a desperate gurgle Hodge’s life is drained from him, until there is nothing left but a papery husk.  
Still unfinished, the creature moves towards Steven, that terrible song ringing in his ears as it stretches out a half-formed hand towards him.  
Pierce, seeing his chance, snatches the satchel from him and holds it up to the creature.  
“ _Tua Selk_!” he shouts, and the creature swivels towards him, drawn to the bag. “ _Anet hrak, suten neteru_.”  
The pronunciation is garbled but the meaning is clear to Steven; Pierce is offering his service to the creature with a gift of what it most desires.  
“No!” Sam yells, drawing a dagger from his belt. The creature swats at him, and an unseen force throws him back. He crashes into the wall, sending plaster raining down, and drops to the ground. 

The creature takes the satchel from Pierce, carefully lifting out the ushabti, and Tony backs away as far as he can. Where Tony retreats Steven rushes towards it, fists raised. The creature drags the flat of its hand through the air, and something heavy and implacable presses against Steven’s chest, forcing him back. He can hear the creature speaking, words pounding through his skull like the clatter of wheels on a train track, and he can only watch in horror as Pierce’s look of triumph turns to one of horror.  
He seems to shrivel up before them, like a sheet of paper thrown into a fire. The edges of him blacken and curl, and he throws back his head, uttering a last, desperate entreaty before he crumples to dust.  
The creature, now fully formed, stretches its arms out, luxuriating in its own existence. It is terrible to behold, all the more so for the parts of it that are familiar. Pierce’s blue eyes look out at them, half-hidden by the tangle of Rollins’ greasy hair. It levels its gaze on Steven, and this time when it speaks he understands.  
 _Come_  
Steven shakes his head, and would stagger back if he could. But whatever force that pushed him back before is restraining him now, and he can barely move a muscle.  
“No,” he rasps as the creature walks towards him, hand outstretched.  
“Hey!”  
Barnes rises up from behind a cracked plinth to the side of the creature, and it raises its hand to swipe at him. Barnes is faster, holding his cat up. “Remember us?”  
Al yowls, launching himself at the creature. It recoils with a horrible squalling, falling into sand and rising up in a storm. It spins around the room once, a tornado of strange winds and burning sands, shattering the stone tablets on the walls as it is chased by the furious cat, and finally bursts out of the room and disperses.

Sam sits up with a groan, and slowly hauls himself to his feet. As he picks his way over to check on Fury, Steve lets his knees give way and sinks to the floor.  
They failed. The creature has regained its powers, and has everything it needs to raise its army.   
They failed.  
Barnes shuffles through the debris, holding onto Al. He checks that Tony is unharmed before making his way over to Steven and sitting down beside him.  
“Steven?” he says gently, and Steven shakes his head.  
“I don’t want to hold your cat, Barnes,” he says bitterly.  
Al lets out a breathy little _hrrr_ , and Steven gives him a grudging little scratch on the head.  
“I’ll be honest,” Barnes admits. “I didn’t think that would work.”  
“It shouldn’t have,” Fury says as Sam helps him to his feet.   
“Bastet in her wisdom has spared us,” Sam says sagely, and Steven tries not to grimace.  
“Great,” Tony says, always the first to bounce back from a beating. He never sulks over things like Steven does, just dusts himself off and carries on. “We need a cat goddess on our side or something.”

It must be dust. There must be dust or plaster or something in Steven’s eyes, because they itch. They itch and burn and he kind of wants to cover his ears and scream until he passes out.  
The tablets. The ancient scriptures that might have held the answers are nothing but dust and rubble now. He stares at the wall that moments before held a priceless artifact, and now there is nothing.  
They failed. Tony is talking about cat goddesses and they failed. The world will end in blood and sand and it’s his fault.  
“We’re all going to die,” he says, and the words taste bitter.  
“We’re not going to die,” Barnes says, all matter of fact. “We’re still here aren’t we? So we got a chance.”  
“How?” Steven snaps, waving his hand around the room, taking in the ruin. “How do we stop it now?”  
Sam raises his head, and there is a glimmer of something there. “To raise his army the creature must return to Thinis,” he says.   
“Yeah, but how do we get there before him?” Fury asks.  
“I know a guy,” Barnes mutters. He’s looking at a piece of plaster that is lying on the floor just in front of them. On it Anubis, the jackal-headed god, weighs a heart on a set of scales. Barnes narrows his eyes a little, fingers working absently through his cat’s fur.  
“Even if we can get there before it,” Steven points out. “What good is that? We can’t fight it. We can’t kill it.”  
“Maybe if we got a lot more cats,” Tony says, picking a bit of plaster from between his teeth.  
“A dog,” Barnes says, more to himself than anyone. “We need a dog.”  
He sits up straighter and points to the plaster. “We need that dog.”  
Steven frowns. “Anubis?”  
“He’s the god of the dead, right?” Barnes is grinning. Why the hell is he grinning? “If anyone can kill that damn thing he can.”  
“Barnes,” Steven says slowly. “They’re not real.”  
He hears a choked sound from Sam and Fury, but persists. “These are stories. Myths. They’re not real.”  
There’s a smile twisting up the corner of Barnes’ mouth. “We’re dealing with a four thousand year old creature that can’t be killed,” he says. “So why not try it?”  
“Why not…?” Steven sputters. “Because the ramifications of… because it’s impossible…” Barnes is grinning from ear to ear, damn him. “Because what if we succeed?” Steven asks desperately. “What if gods are _real_?”  
“Monsters are real,” Barnes leans towards him, and damn the man, his hope is infectious. “Curses are real. Why not this?”  
“But… but the very thought of a world-”  
“If they’re real, they’ve always been real,” Barnes says. “Don’t matter if we believe in them or not.”  
It's a terrible plan. It's terrible but it could work.  
Damn him. Damn his smart mouth and his stupid, brilliant, terrible plan. There is a spell. Steven remembers reading it, a summoning of Anubis. He’s always wanted to try it.  
Without thinking he grabs Barnes by the shoulders and kisses him, hard and brief.  
 _Brandy_ , he thinks. _He tasted like brandy before._  
“Okay,” Steven whispers. There had been a campfire and starlight and Barnes’ hands warm on his hips. His mouth had tasted of brandy and Steven never wanted to stop kissing him.   
Tony thrusts his fist into the air and gives a little cheer. “Finally!”  
Steven ignores him because Barnes, _Bucky_ , wraps both arms around him, kissing him back, and if there was a reason to live it was to have more of this.  
“Anubis,” Steven says, breathless with more than just the possibilities. “We’ll call upon Anubis.”


	9. Glory to Anubis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There is a shape moving within the golden grains. Something terrible and beautiful and old, older than time. Bucky catches fleeting glimpses here and there; a forearm marked with serried rows of raised scars. A long, curved ear edged in gold.

The sign on the gate was faded, the words ‘Royal Air Corps’ barely visible, with _Per Ardua ad Astra_ underneath in curling script. Bucky climbs out of the car, on loan from Falsworth on strict instructions not to leave a scratch on the paintwork, and hauls open the gate.  
Steven hasn’t looked up from his books once the whole journey, crammed into the passenger seat with half a library. He only moves to turn a page, or occasionally shove his glasses up his nose, or wipe away sand from the lenses.  
Tony, by contrast, has not shut up the whole damn ride. Before setting off he’d dug his damn pith helmet and a pair of sunglasses out of his luggage, and has spent the drive up to Alexandria being ‘helpful’, which mostly seems to consist of yammering in Steven’s ear and being studiously ignored. Bucky almost feels bad for Wilson, crammed in the back with him with barely room to move, Al using his lap as a pincushion.  
Almost.  
“Hey, what is this place?” Tony asks as Bucky gets back into the car. “I thought the British all got kicked out of Egypt?”  
“Relief landing ground,” Bucky says over his shoulder, putting the car into gear and driving up the single track. The dunes look exactly the same on this side of the chain link fence as they do on the other. “Home of No. 56 Squadron, formerly the No. 80 Squadron, though if anyone asks this is the No. 208 Squadron.”  
Tony lifts up his sunglasses and gives Bucky a slightly boss-eyed look. “What?”  
Bucky shrugs. “Officially speaking the squadron was disbanded after the war. _Un_ officially speaking…” He takes a hand off the steering wheel and waggles it in the air.  
“Ah.” Tony lowers his sunglasses, relaxing in the presence of legally dubious practices. “Gotcha.”  
“Dugan is a decent guy,” Bucky assures them all. “I’d trust him with my life. Again.”

The track peters out alongside an old quonset hut surrounded by dunes. Bucky climbs out, leaving Steven to his books, and gestures for the others to join him. Al leaps out of Wilson’s lap, trotting across the sand beside him.  
In the lee of the hut, under a massive pink parasol, a familiar figure sits at a little bistro table, drinking mint tea from a tall glass. Bucky snaps off a neat little salute and gets a glass raised in return.  
“Sergeant!” Dugan calls out, hauling himself up to his feet. “Get over here.”  
Bucky doesn’t need to be told twice, walking over with open arms and getting pulled into a bear hug. He slaps Dugan on the arm when he needs the use of his lungs again, and Dugan lets go, turning to get a look at the company Bucky has with him.  
“What’s this rabble, eh?” he asks, bending down to pick up the cat winding around his legs.  
“Tim Dugan, this is Tony,” Bucky pauses to rub his chest, damn but one day the man is gonna crack his ribs. “And Wilson. There’s another one in the car over there.”  
Dugan leans over, trying to get a look at Steve. “Oh- _ho_ ,” he booms gleefully. “Is this your beau?”  
“No one says beau,” Bucky sighs. Of course he knows about Steven, Jones was probably on the phone to everyone the second they’d left Beni Suef.  
“I say beau.” Dugan starts striding over to the car, Al tucked under his arm. “I’ll just go say hello.”  
“Dugan!” Bucky yells after him. “Be nice!”  
“I’m very nice!” Dugan calls back. A moment later there is a yelp from Steven, no doubt from having a bristly mustache attached to a colossal nuisance shoved in his face.

After two minutes of watching Dugan and Steven muttering back and forth, Bucky starts to get twitchy. What the hell are they saying?  
“We don’t have time for this,” Wilson mutters, and for once Bucky is inclined to agree.  
“Hey Dugan!” he shouts. “Time’s a’wasting.”  
Al lets out a loud yowl, and comes bounding over, prancing back and forth and chasing imaginary mice. Steven finally climbs out of the car, slow and a little stiff from being cramped in one position so long. He brings an armful of books with him, of course, still talking with Dugan as they rejoin the group.  
Dugan puffs out his chest a little.“So your fella here says there’s some kind of mummy on the loose. End of the world, all that?”  
Steven’s sun-touched face turns a little redder at the word ‘fella’, but he nods along.  
“That’s pretty much the sum of it,” Bucky agrees. “We need to get to Thinis before he-”  
“Raises an army of the undead,” Dugan finishes. He nods to Tony and Sam. “How are you two with heights?”  
Tony shrugs while Sam looks defiant.  
“I’ll take that as a you’re fine,” Dugan mutters to himself. “Ever been on a plane?”  
“Yup,” Tony says.  
“No,” Sam says at the same time.  
“Not _in_ a plane,” Dugan grins. “ _On_ one.” They look at him blankly, and he points towards the hanger. “Right this way, lads. No time to lose.”

Steven isn’t the only one who baulks at the sight of the biplane waiting for them. Dugan strides over to it, patting the shell proudly. It makes a distressingly hollow sound.  
“Isn’t she a beauty! Aero A.12 Reconnaissance Craft.” Dugan beams at them. “Rate of climb is 683 feet a minute if you really give it some welly.”  
“What the hell is that thing made of, tin?” Tony prowls towards the biplane, reaching up to touch a wing.  
“Shut it,” Dugan says cheerfully, gesturing to the machine gun fixed at the rear. There are two compartments for passengers, one for the pilot and one for a gunner at the rear. “You said there was a monster? Well this should take care of it, a .303 Vickers machine gun.”  
“No mortal weapon can kill it,” Wilson says, but from the way he’s eying up the machine gun he looks willing to give it a try.  
It comes as no surprise that Steven is the one to bring up what everyone is thinking. “There’s only two seats.”  
Dugan’s smile grows wider, and he climbs up to the cockpit, retrieving a bundle of ropes.  
“Oh,” Tony whispers. “Oh no.”  
“Alright lads,” Dugan gestures for Sam and Tony to come closer. “Left or right?”

It takes little persuasion to get Wilson onto the wing of the biplane, and he lies still on the broad spar while Dugan ties him down, leaving his hands free if he needs to gesture. Dugan is a generous soul, and if they hit a crosswind Wilson will want a way of expressing his displeasure non verbally. Task complete, he shakes a second length of rope at Tony.  
“Come on, old man,” Dugan shouts. “Up you get.”  
Tony grudgingly climbs onto the other wing, yelping whenever Dugan fastens a knot a little too tightly. He gives Tony a pat on the back before clambering down to join Steven and Bucky on the runway.  
Steven, after some negotiations, has narrowed his book collection down to three, and he hugs them to his chest while staring at the plane.  
“They’ll be fine,” Bucky promises, handing Al over to Dugan.  
“What about me?” Steven hisses as Bucky climbs into the gunners seat and checks the machine gun.  
“You’ll be fine, lad,” Dugan assures him, Al curling up in his arms  
Steven doesn’t look convinced, but shoves the books under his arms. “Where do I go, on the tail?”  
Dugan guffaws, loud and cheery. “No, laddie.” He shoves Steven towards the gunners seat, and Bucky privately calls him a goodly assortment of uncharitable words, as the only place to sit would be in Bucky’s lap. Steven’s ears turn red, and slowly the rest of his face follows suit.  
“Are you sure?” Steven hisses.  
“Absolutely.” Dugan gives him a wink. “Weight distribution and all that.”

Steven climbs up the side of the plane, giving Bucky an apologetic, slightly flustered smile. There is barely any room to maneuver, and as Bucky tries to move one way so Steven isn’t right on his _assets_ Steven moves the other, and smacks him across the face with his copy of _Egyptian Magic_.  
“Son of a-” Bucky rubs his nose, seeing stars, and Steven sits down sideways on his lap. He tucks his feet into the footwell, and before Bucky can say a word cracks open the offending book and starts reading.  
After a moment of staring, nose stinging, Bucky gently pulls the book out of Steven’s hands and turns it the right way up.  
“All set?” Dugan shouts, sliding into the pilot seat with surprising ease for a man so burly. He tucks Al down at his feet and starts the engine, the biplane roaring into life.  
Tony lets out a shriek as the propellor starts to rotate, dragging the plane forward. With the extra weight it moves in starts and jerks, sidling across the runway, the wheels lifting off the ground for seconds at a time only to come back down to earth with a skid and a bump.  
Steven drops his book on the first bump, and when it disappears into the footwell he frowns after it before pulling another book out of his jacket and flicking through to a suitable chapter.  
Dugan pulls on the throttle with a shout of triumph, and they finally rise up into the air.

The roar of the engine and the howl of the wind soon drown out the sounds of Tony swearing, and Bucky does his best to twist around in his seat and check in on everyone. Steven, still resolutely pretending to read, lets out a yelp as Bucky turns to the right, wind tugging at the pages of his book.  
“How’s it going, Tony?” Bucky yells onto the wing.  
Tony, his pith helmet still strapped in place, says something uncharitable about his parentage. Bucky chuckles and twists over to the left. Wilson is clinging to the wing, the straps from the goggles Dugan leant him flapping in the crosswind. He is grinning widely, displaying the gap in his two front teeth, and gives Bucky a thumbs up.  
“Huh,” Bucky mutters, dropping back into his seat.  
Steven squirms, trying to get comfortable, and Bucky lets out a stifled wheeze.  
“Not a good idea,” he says, his voice pitching up, and Steven freezes in place.  
“Oh,” he says, and there’s a curious lilt to his voice. He stares at his book, at the page he’s been looking at for a good five minutes now. Another crosswind catches the pages, and almost drags the book out of his hands altogether. 

Bucky watches the pantomime with increasing fondness. After Steven had jumped him back at the museum there had been no time to hang around. Before either of them had a chance to talk it over, maybe get their bearings a little, Fury had sent them on their way. He’d dropped a few hastily wrapped objects and a dozen books on Steven as they were out the door, and that had put paid to any conversation en route.  
Bucky doesn’t resent it, Steven and books will always be a package deal. But maybe there’s room for him too, if they don’t die horribly first.  
With that in mind, and knowing it’s most likely going to get him a smack in the mouth, Bucky takes the book and drops it into the footwell.  
“You’re not reading it,” he says in Steven’s ear.  
“If it has escaped your notice,” Steven says crisply. “We are on our way to raise the God of the Dead to face an unkillable creature. I need to be prepared.”  
Bucky leans in closer, lips brushing against his ear. He has so much he wants to say, about how these might be their last moments together, that life is short and they should make the most of it. Sweet words that might find their way through Steven’s defences. But what kind of asshole would that make him?  
“You’re right,” he says instead, and presses a chaste kiss to Steven’s cheek before reaching down to retrieve the book.  
“Oh, damn it,” Steven sighs, grabbing a handful of Bucky’s hair and pulling him into a kiss.

When drunk Steven kisses like a barroom brawl, all teeth and brandy and bruises. Sober he is no less pugnacious, twisting a hank of Bucky’s hair around his fingers and hauling him closer. As though there were anywhere on earth Bucky would rather be.  
Time spills like grains of sand, lost in the slide of tongue and the scrape of teeth, and when a jolt passes through them it takes Bucky far too long to realise that they have come back to earth with a literal bump.  
“Come on, you lovebirds!” Dugan shouts, slapping the side of the plane and making Steven jump, teeth digging into the swell of Bucky’s lip and drawing blood.  
“Ow,” Bucky winces as Steven sits back, a blush high on his cheeks. “Not so rough.”  
Steven makes an odd little noise, pulling his cock-eyed glasses straight. _Oh_.  
“Okay.” Bucky clears his throat. “Scratch that, be as rough as you want.”  
The noise Steven makes this time by rights only dogs should be able to hear. Al, lounging in the pilot’s seat now Dugan has vacated it, pulls his ears back in displeasure.  
“If you’re quite finished?” Tony says sharply, gesturing to his ropes. “A little help?”  
Steven gathers up his books and makes himself scarce, leaving it to Bucky to scoot out onto the wing and untie the ropes himself.

“You know something?” Tony grumbles as he slides to the ground.  
Bucky gathers up the ropes, dropping them into the gunners seat. He’s not really in the mood for the shovel speech, but Wilson has managed to work his way out of the ropes unaided, and is busy unscrewing the machine gun from the rear of the plane.  
“I’m guessing you’re gonna tell me anyway,” he says at last.  
“That thing.” Tony points to the plane. “Is terrible. Did you see how much fuel it took to even get us off the ground? And how much extra weight is it carrying, having two wings instead of one? I mean I get that they’re maneuverable, but at what cost?”  
Bucky stares blankly as Tony rambles on about drag and lift, and something about cars. When Bucky fails to unravel the mysteries of air travel Tony snorts, turning on his heel. “Hey Stevie!” he shouts. “Come here, I need a pen!”  
Wilson lets out a gleeful little sound, hefting the machine gun onto his shoulder. When he sees Bucky staring at him, he gives a thumbs up. Bucky gives a dubious little thumbs up in return.  
“Mad,” he mutters, following Tony over to where Dugan is going over post flight checks, waving Steven’s pencil. “They’re all mad.”

They have landed on the flats just outside the city wall, and when Bucky looks up at the ruins he sees Jabari sentries staring down at them. No doubt their ape-masked leader will shortly be here to give them an earful.  
He sees Steven over on the other side of the plane, watching the sentries moving around, and wonders what he’s thinking.  
“Dugan?” Bucky says oftly. “I need you to stay here.”  
“Nonsense,” Dugan snorts. “If there’s a fight I’m-”  
“You’re our getaway,” Bucky interrupts. “If things go south, whoever gets out of that place will need to get away from here. Fast.”  
Dugan casts his gaze over to where Steven is checking through his pockets, pulling out the little paper wraps that Fury had shoved at him in Cairo and opening them up.  
“And will you be one of them?” Dugan asks, voice low.  
“Just…” Bucky scrubs his hands through his hair. God, why couldn’t he have a normal life? “Just keep them safe, okay?”  
For a minute he thinks Dugan is going to argue, but he gives a stiff little nod. “Aye, Sarge.”  
“Uh.” Tony pops up between the two of them. “I was thinking maybe I should stay too. Help him man the fort as it were.”  
Steven’s notebook is in his hand, a sketch of the biplanes wing taking shape on the page. Bucky gets the sense that he’s not often interested in things that don’t involve money, and feels like an asshole for what he’s about to say.  
“You’re with us, Tony.”  
Tony’s expression doesn’t shift, and for a guy so terrible at poker he’s good at hiding his disappointment. He must have had practice.  
“Tony can stay,” Steven says, his inventory of his pockets completed.  
Bucky is not inclined to argue, and even if he was, a handful of Jabari are making their way past the city walls, swarming down to meet them.

Steven pushes his way to the front of their little gathering, Wilson close to his side. Bucky’s first instinct is to get right up there with them, but Steven can handle himself, and Wilson? Eh, Wilson is alright.  
Al climbs out of the gunners seat and yawps to be picked up. Bucky gives the cat a quick scratch behind the ear before moving him onto his shoulder.  
The leader, wearing his ape mask, stops a few feet from them.  
“Did we not tell you to leave?” he snarls at Steven, who bristles but stops short of punching the man.  
“M’Baku,” Wilson says, inclining his head in deference. “We have come-”  
M’Baku pulls off his mask, and regards Wilson with a sneer. “So the pigeon has flown down from Cairo.”  
Wilson hefts the machine gun on his shoulder. “Better a pigeon than a-”  
“The creature is coming!” Steven interrupts. “He has regained his full strength and is planning to raise his army.”  
Bucky has no idea what word M’Baku says, a sharp fricative that has his entourage running back to the city to make ready for whatever is coming.  
“Thank you,” M’Baku says, inclining his head a fraction before returning to his usual brick-wall stance. “Now leave.”  
“I think we found a way to kill the creature,” Steven says breathlessly. He holds up one of his books, thumb marking the page. “The invocation of Anubis.”  
M’Baku leans down to squint at the page, his expression souring. “You are mad.”  
“We are _desperate_.”  
When M’Baku does not answer Wilson speaks up. “Brother, we are at the end of days.” In spite of everything he smiles. “What can it hurt to try?”  
M’Baku snorts at his words, but relents all the same. “Come on.” he gestures to the city walls. “The gods will laugh at us, but what else is new?”

The Jabari move into position around the city, some standing guard on the city walls to watch for the creature’s return while others take position around the tomb. M’Baku leads them through the ruins, muttering under his breath as they make their way to the statue of Anubis.  
They pass a courtyard where the smouldering remains of a fire sends flakes of ash into the sky. While M’Baku speaks to his men, sending them off on errands one by one, Bucky walks over to the edge of the fire pit. Al shifts on his shoulder, and Bucky holds him in place before the dumbass tries to go rolling around in hot ashes.  
“What happened here?” Steven asks.  
Al chirps in Bucky’s ear as he kicks through the cooling embers, turning over a charred bone. “The generals?”  
M’Baku nods. “We brought out the remains of his guardsmen, and anything he might have used in his resurrection.”  
“Shame you didn’t do that sooner,” Bucky mutters.  
“Shame you broke his sarcophagus and released him into the world,” M’Baku retorts.  
Bucky kicks the bone back into the embers. “Fair point.”

They reach the statue, and Bucky hangs back from the group a little, one hand buried in Al’s fur. At M’Baku’s orders several of his people join them, forming a large circle around the statue.  
After a few minutes the men return from their errands, one holding a brown glass bottle, another a wooden bowl filled with strips of dried meat. A third carries a strange looking object made of bronze. It looks almost like a backscratcher; an open hand, palm upwards, at one end and a stylised ape head at the other. Where the crook of the elbow would be is a small box, filled with embers.  
“Myrrh,” M’Baku says, looking around. “Who has brought myrrh?”  
“I have!” Steven pulls a package from his coat, one of the items Fury had pressed upon him. A small envelope of pale, amber grains. “I have myrrh!”  
He hands over the package to M’Baku, who tips a few of the grains into the embers. The air quickly fills with a rich, earthy aroma, and the Jabari moves the incense through the air, a soft chant low in his throat.

There is a change in the air, as though a storm were approaching. Al lets out a soft yowl, the fur on his spine standing, and Bucky smooths it down with the flat of his hand.  
The chant is taken up by the other Jabari, and though the tone is soft and the words indistinct they make Bucky’s ears itch. A shiver runs down his spine, his mouth dry and his eyes burning.  
“Okay,” Steven says to himself, checking that he’s on the right page before stepping into the circle.  
“ _An au unna ni_ -”  
“What do you think you are doing?” M’Baku barks, and Steven lets out a sharp curse, almost dropping his book.  
“The… the Right of Invocation?” he stammers. The incense and the chanting must be getting to him.  
M’Baku slaps the book out of his hand. “The Rite of Invocation? Are you… are you stupid?”  
“Uh. No?” Steven clenches his fists, and Bucky takes a step forward, ready to haul him out of the trouble he’s making.  
“When you perform the Rite of Invocation you are offering yourself up as a _vessel_ for the gods,” M’Baku points to the statue. “Do you want Great Anpu to manifest _in_ you? To wear you like a shirt?”  
Steven shakes his head quickly. “No, I don’t like the sound of that.”  
Bucky gently snags him by the collar and pulls him away from the circle. “Steven,” he says quietly. “I know you’ve read a lot of books, but do you think you know these people better than they do?”  
Despite the heat, Steven pales. “No. No, I was just trying to help.”  
“You have,” Bucky assures him. “But they’ve been doing this shit for like four thousand years, right?”  
Wilson, standing at M’Baku’s side moves over a little, making space for them to join the circle. He mumbles something in Steven’s ear, a smattering of consonants that Steven repeats, hesitant at first but gaining confidence, until his words weave into the chant like a shining thread.  
Satisfied, M’Baku turns his attention to the statue, his voice rising up in a song strange and melodic.

The sands around the base of the statue begin to stir, and Al lets out a low, rumbling growl. It’s the kind of sustained, low note a cat can carry almost endlessly, powered by circular breathing or boundless rage.  
“Shh,” Bucky murmurs, giving the cat a scratch. It doesn’t make the slightest difference, and Al keeps on yowling.  
M’Baku doesn’t even break his chant, leaning over to slap Bucky’s hand away. It’s a clear instruction, let him sing, so Bucky holds the cat steady, claws pricking holes in his jacket.  
Bucky’s eyes sting as the sand whips back and forth, spinning up like dervishes and crashing down again. Higher and higher they rise, as though gaining strength, though no wind whips through the city. Despite the sun beating down on his back Bucky shivers. He has been frightened before, but he’s never really felt fear, not like this. Not like something small and brown-furred in the presence of a snake.  
An animal instinct to run, to hide, to gnaw off a limb rather than be trapped in this place, almost overwhelms him, and he holds Al a little tighter, the cat leaning into him in return.  
While the city around them is silent and still within the circle of Jabari a storm rages. The faint wisps of incense are swept up in the swirling sands, carried high up into the sky and swept down again, as a column of sand forms before the statue. There is a shape moving within the golden grains. Something terrible and beautiful and old, older than time. Bucky catches fleeting glimpses here and there; a forearm marked with serried rows of raised scars. A long, curved ear edged in gold.  
The chanting comes to a sudden stop, and the sands fall at their feet, revealing the god Anubis.

At Bucky’s side Steven lets out the faintest little sound, not one of terror like any reasonable person who values their skin, but fascination.  
It is Anubis. Anubis from countless tomb paintings and papyri. Tall and broad shouldered, his dark skin is decorated with raised scars. There are broad sweeps of them across his chest curving up to his shoulders, and in orderly rows down his arms and stomach. It reminds Bucky of a crocodile, of some ancient creature that lurks on the edge of sight with wide, hungry jaws. He wears a wrap of white linen, a stark contrast to his burnt earth skin, around his waist. Gold bands decorate his wrists and biceps, at his neck hangs golden chains.  
And like the papyri of old Anubis wears a mask, a jackal head in black with details picked out in gold.  
M’Baku is the first to move, inclining his head in deference.  
“ _Tua Anpu_ ,” he intones. _Glory to Anubis._  
Anubis regards him in silence, before reaching up to grasp the muzzle of his mask. He lifts it up, revealing a wide smile that creases and dimples his cheeks. Although the sides of his head are shaved almost to the skin, atop his scalp is a thicket of dreadlocks that fall over his painted eyes.  
“Whassup?” he says brightly, tucking the mask under his arm.  



	10. Rattle and Clatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “With respect, great Anubis,” Steven begins as Anubis cocks an eyebrow, looking amused. “Are you not Foremost of the Westerners? Isn’t your purpose to lead the living west, to the land of the dead?”  
> “Uh-huh,” Anubis says drily.  
> “Well, you forgot this one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cryo_Bucky: Thanks to everyone for your kind words and comments and particular thank you to Fox for letting me shamelessly enable you throughout the whole process. It’s been a blast to hash things out and create art for this story!
> 
> Fox: Thank you to Meg for the shameless enabling and cat pics, and special thanks to Darry for beta reading (all mistakes are mine, because I'm stubborn when it comes to commas)

There is no way of preparing yourself when facing a god. They do not teach you how to greet a god in school, and though there are no end of books about finding god few are worth reading.  
Steven blinks rapidly, trying to shake off the fuzz in his head and the ringing in his ears. Anubis. The God Anubis. The Finder of the Way and the-  
“Glory to Anubis, huh?” Anubis tilts his chin up at M’Baku. “You better not let Hanuman hear ‘bout all that.”  
M’Baku bristles, shifting into a fighting stance. “ _All_ glory to Hanuman,” he says, slow and deliberate.  
Anubis laughs, a short bark, and takes a good look at the people before him.  
Steven blinks again, shaking his head like he has water in his ears. Anubis does not shift out of focus like a mirage, or alter in detail like a daydream. When he speaks Steven can hear him clearly, though there is a strangeness to his voice, his words are English but it seems to be some arcane dialect. And he is real. He is solid and real and… and…  
Al lets out a yowl, and Anubis saunters over, reaching out to rub him under the chin. Up close Steven catches a faint scent of myrrh and cedar oil, and Al purrs loudly at the attention.  
“Hey, little brother,” Anubis says fondly, while Barnes stifles a cough.  
Steven gives Barnes a surreptitious glance. There are spots of colour high on his cheeks, and he pushes the hand not holding Al through his hair, teasing out the tangles. Where has Steven seen that gesture before?  
Back on the boat, on the Nile sailing towards Thinis. And then again in Beni Suef, his gaze lingering on Steven’s lips.  
“Barnes!” Steven snaps, and the man flinches, giving Steven a guilty look.  
“I was just being friendly.”  
“You were not!” Steven hisses, and Anubis steps back, his grin stretching wider.  
“Nah, you alright,” he says, turning full circle to get a look at his surroundings.  
“Sorry,” Barnes whispers, and gives a weak little gesture. “Just, y’know… look at him.”  
Anubis clearly hears them, throwing a wink their way. In that moment Steven resolves, god or not, to smack Anubis in the mouth if he ever comes near what’s his.  
“Possessive, ain’t ya,” Bucky whispers. Steven balks at the thought of having actually said all that out loud, but Barnes looks happy, and it’s hard to complain when he’s smiling.

Anubis turns on his heel, regarding M’Baku with kohl rimmed eyes. “Not that it ain’t a-” he kicks at the sand. “-thrill to be walking the world, but what y’all call on me for?”  
“The Scorpion has awoken,” M’Baku says grimly, nodding to Sam.  
“As we speak he crosses the desert,” Sam continues. “Returning to the city to raise his army and lay waste to the world again.”  
Anubis nods, lower lip jutting out. “Oh, I get it.” He swings around in a circle, making sure all eyes are on him. “Five thousand years an’ you don’t call on me once, but now you in the shit you knocking at my door, asking me to take care of it.”  
“Yes,” M’Baku says, clearly not a man of sweet words or persuasion.  
“If I may,” Steven says, not waiting for an answer and shouldering his way into Anubis’ line of sight.  
“Steven!” Bucky tries to grab him, but Steven is too quick this time, stepping into the shadow cast by Anubis and feeling a chill thread under his skin.  
“With respect, great Anubis, _khentyamentiu_ ” Anubis cocks an eyebrow, looking amused. “Are you not Foremost of the Westerners? Isn’t your purpose to lead the living west, to the land of the dead?”  
“Uh-huh,” Anubis says drily.  
“Well, you forgot this one.” Steven hardly flinches at the shocked noise from Sam, and points towards the desert. The wind is picking up, and the air tastes like scorched metal. “I faced the creature, and it was not a mortal man. It was neither alive nor dead, but something else, and it is your duty to usher it from this world to the next.”  
“Oh.” Anubis swaggers a little. “My _duty_ , huh?”  
“Yes, your duty to mpfff-”  
M’Baku grabs Steven by the scruff and hauls him into the air one-handed. Steven lets out a yelp, feet kicking for purchase and finding nothing, and gets set down on the sand outside the circle.  
“That’s enough from you,” M’Baku says sternly.  
“Nah.” Anubis waves a hand at them, body lax and motion fluid. “He’s right. It’s on me.”

M’Baku nearly sprains something, twisting back to stare at Anubis. Steven extricates himself from the man’s grip, his collar getting ragged and threadbare from all the pulling around, and pushes his way back into the circle.  
“He has returned to his full strength, draining the lives of others to reclaim his own.” Steven hesitates. How do you explain to a god that you might have been involved in that? “We tried to destroy the ushabti before he could find them all, but…” He spreads his hands, as if gathering up everything that has happened in the last week and trying to shove it into something a little less terrible, as if the world was a broken vase and he was piling the pieces up into a vase-like mound.  
“Alright.” Anubis holds out his hand to one of the Jabari, who to her credit doesn’t flinch, and hands over the spear he’s silently asking for. He takes the spear in both hands, studying its length and heft, and then breaks it in half over his knee. The lower portion he throws to the ground, the upper half he swings through the air, testing its worth. Satisfied, he rests the shaft against his shoulder and nods towards the horizon, where a sandstorm gathers strength.  
M’Baku follows his gaze, and at the sight of the approaching storm calls his men to arms, a few sharp cries sending them to the walls.  
“What should we do?” Steven asks as Anubis steps out of the circle, striding across the courtyard to face what is coming.  
“We take him down.”

Barnes curses under his breath, and takes off for the city wall. At the same moment Steven realises what he’s thinking. Tony and Dugan are outside the city, at the mercy of the creature.  
Steven chases after him, scrambling over the ruins and between the still-standing pillars, up to the wall where Jabari are lining up with their spears. Down in the desert Tony and Dugan are engaged in a cheerful argument about something or other, looking askance when Barnes leans over the wall and waves at them to come in.  
“Tony!” Steven yells, getting an irritated grunt from the Jabari on the wall beside him. “Get in here now!”  
Tony waves Steven’s pen at the landing gear of the plane. “Hey Stevie, you know they use rubber bands as breaks on these things?”  
“Damnit Tony, now is not the time!”  
While they’ve been shouting Dugan has been watching the desert, and points at the fast approaching sandstorm.  
“He’s got a point, lad,” he says. “Storm’s coming this way, a big one.”  
Tony concedes, scrambling up to climb the wall. He gives the Jabari standing guard at the top a nod, and after a second too long they step aside, letting him pass.  
“Thank you,” he says pointedly, dropping down to join Steven while Barnes waits for Dugan to clamber up after him. Dugan appears a few minutes later, a sack from the plane over his shoulder, huffing and panting as Barnes helps him over.  
“Tell me you brought guns,” Barnes says hopefully, eying the sack.  
Dugan wheezes, shoving the bag into his arms. “What do you take me for?”  
“So, uh,” Tony makes a point of looking around. “No luck with the gods?”  
Barnes rummages around in the bag before pulling out a pair of revolvers. “You want to tell him or can I?”  
Tony gives him a dubious look. “Tell me what?”

*

Barnes tosses one of his revolvers at Tony, who is too dumbstruck to catch it. It smacks him in the gut and falls to the ground.  
“Tony,” Steven says softly, picking up the revolver between finger and thumb and holding it out like a dead frog. When his brother makes no move to take it Steven pushes it into his hand.  
“This is a joke, right?” Tony mutters as Steven closes his hand around the grip. “Ha. Very funny, now what’s really going on?”  
“It’s like he said.” Barnes shoves a handful of bullets in his pants pocket, and passes another revolver to Dugan. “There was a big circle, lots of mumbling, and _fwoop_ there he was.”  
Barnes looks almost wistful, enough that Steven has to go over and jab him a little. “Enough of that.”  
“Aw, sweetheart,” Barnes says, voice pitched low. “You’re adorable when you’re-”  
Steven jabs him a little harder, and whatever nonsense he was going to come out with is lost in a yelp.  
Al comes trotting over, tail held high, and winds himself around Barnes’ leg. He chirps when Barnes clicks his tongue, watching as he holds one of his revolvers out to Steven.  
“Here,” Barnes says, his teasing smile dropping. “Better safe than sorry.”  
“Oh no,” Steven shakes his head. “I’m not so good with guns.”  
Barnes pulls a face, before going over to a cache of Jabari supplies and picking out a spear. That at least is something Steven can work with, and he takes it with a murmured thanks.  
“I’m not buying it,” Tony announces, as someone comes up behind him. “You don’t seriously expect me to believe that-”  
“S’up?” Anubis reaches down to pick up Al. The cat lets out a pleased _prrk_.  
Tony spins around to face him, making a strangled little noise. “Uh,” he says, leaning back a little as Anubis grins at him. “The sky? My blood pressure?”  
Anubis lets out a soft huff of laughter before turning to the tomb. “Shit’s about to get real, folks.”

While the majority of the Jabari stand on the city walls, a select number of M’Baku’s guards remain outside the tomb. With them is Sam, who has reclaimed the machine gun set aside during the rite. Dugan lets out a delighted laugh when he sees what Sam is doing, and goes over to help, laying out its ammunition belt on the ground. Anubis circles the area, his movements thoughtful and measured, and Al pitter-patters along behind him.  
The wind is picking up, the air arid and bitter, and Tony squints up at the darkening sky, clouded with sand.  
“Not that I don’t enjoy the camaraderie,” he glances at Barnes checking his guns. “But what are we all doing here? I mean you’ve got the god of death over there, can’t he take care of it?”  
“He’s not the god of death,” Steven says patiently. “He ushers souls to the afterlife.”  
Tony spreads out his hands like it makes any difference.  
“The creature is his duty, yes,” Sam cuts in. “But whatever abominations it raises from the desert, it falls to us to destroy.”  
Tony’s mouth twists up. “A what now?”  
“Abominations,” Sam repeats slowly, sounding out each syllable.  
“Anubis is a cab driver,” Barnes announces. When Steven looks askew at him Barnes grins. “You need to get across town, so you flag down a cab, right? He takes you where you need to go. The why and when is nothing to do with him, he’s just the driver. You pay him at the end and he gets you where you gotta be.”  
Tony frowns. “All that being said, why do we have to be here?”  
“The creature is at his full strength,” Sam continues. “He has power over the sands, and all those who have fallen in this cursed place. He will raise an army of the dead, and that is why we are here.”  
Barnes pauses, as if taking stock of his life up to and including this point. “What he’s saying is we’re here to fight an army of the already dead.”  
Sam nods. “If you fall in this fight the creature will take possession of your earthly remains. You will rise again to do his bidding.”  
Tony’s grip tightens on his borrowed revolver, fingers shaking. “And, uh, how do we stop that from happening?”  
“Don’t die,” M’Baku says, stalking past.  
“Not helping!” Tony yells after him.

As the sandstorm approaches Al comes bounding over to join them, clambering up Barnes’ leg and settling on his shoulder. The wind whips through the city, making the last of the standing pillars groan and shudder. The ground beneath their feet starts to feel less stable, the sands beginning to rise up in little dervishes here and there.  
A plume of sand spirals up by Steven’s feet, and he smacks it with his spear, sending the grains scattering. Another rises up beside M’Baku, and he stamps down on it before it can gain momentum.  
Beyond the city walls the storm is fast approaching, close enough that they can discern shapes in the sand. An army of the undead, bodies dragged up from the sands, riding out towards them.  
“Steven?” Barnes’ voice is soft with concern as the air becomes thicker. This is a world away from libraries and books, and Steven knows he’s out of his depth. But he’s not scared, not in the slightest.  
“I’m alright,” he says, glancing Barnes’ way.  
Before Barnes can answer Sam shouts a warning. The fire pit. The pit where the Jabari had piled up the remains of the entombed generals and set them alight. The storm stirs through the cold embers, fragments of ash whipped up in the wind. At least that’s what Steven thinks is happening at first. The ashes shift and stir, random flurries of grey flakes pulled up into the swirling sands, and start to move with purpose.  
“What the…” Sam’s words trickle away as the first figure sways to its feet.  
Bones, charred in the fire. Bones and ash and sand rise up as the generals are reanimated one by one. They shudder and moan, teeth champing in their blackened skulls, and take their first steps in four thousand years. The sound of their movement is not something Steven will forget, the hollow clatter like wooden windchimes and the scrape of bone against weathered stone.  
“Oh, that’s not good,” Barnes whispers, and raises both revolvers.  
“ _Wakpo ha_!” M’Baku roars, and every living thing in the city raises their weapons and charges.

The skeletons rattle and clatter and they skulk forward, an advance guard of the creatures return, and the Jabari descend upon them, showing no mercy. The creatures have no hearts to pierce or lives to end, but their bones break when struck. M’Baku wades into the fray, swinging a knobkerrie with blind fury. The skeletons, their ancient bones already brittle from their centuries of interment and the lick of flame, shatter on impact.  
Before Steven has even reached the fire pit it is all over, and M’Baku stands proudly in the center, bones crushed under his boots.  
“Witness the might of the Jabari!” he roars to the sky, waving his knobkerrie at the sun as if in challenge.  
“Oh,” Tony says as the sandstorm dies back. “Well that wasn’t so-”  
The storm crashes against the city walls, sending a shockwave through the earth that shatters ancient pillars and brings the statue of Anubis crumbling down. The raging sands part, and the creatures true army is revealed. Some are little more than bones, the last rags of their clothing bundling them together like firewood. Others could pass for living men, if you didn’t look too closely at their hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. All of them were lost to the desert.  
How many were struck down by the Eye of Horus? How many were left to perish by the Jabari, all their efforts keep the city hidden turned against them.  
“Look lively, lads!” Dugan pulls back the firing pin on his revolver and takes aim as the first of the undead climbs over the city wall.

M’Baku turns to face the new challenge with a roar, slapping his chest and grunting. The army pours over the crumbling walls like a wave, like a tsunami, flowing into the city from all sides, and the Jabari rise up to meet them.  
Barnes curses at Steven’s side, unable to get a clear shot without the risk of hitting a Jabari, and he scrambles up onto higher ground, picking them off the undead one by one. Bullets shatter skulls and shoulder blades, but the creatures keep advancing, and as long as they can stand they march, until their bodies finally break apart.  
“Let me give it a try!” Sam shouts, climbing up to join him.  
Barnes takes one look at the machine gun resting on his hip and nods. “I got your back,” he says, spinning around to watch his six o’clock.  
Down in the melee Steven swings his borrowed spear with all the force he can muster, Tony at his back taking pot-shots at anything that looks his way. One of the undead lurches towards him, arms outstretched, and with a blind swing Steve takes its head clean off its shoulders. The skull rolls along the ground, settling in the sand downside up, and Al pounces on it, batting at the hollow eye sockets while its jaws champ and creak.  
Dugan quickly gives up on his gun, sending his last bullet into the throat of something far too fresh for comfort before pitching the revolver at another creatures face. A third one lumbers up behind him and he grabs hold of it, lifting it bodily into the air and hefting it at a handful of others, knocking them over like bowling pins.

The storm rages around them, casting sand into their eyes and shifting the ground under their feet. Steven blinks away the grit, trying to see the end of it, but the undead keep swarming towards them, wave after wave of them. A Jabari is dragged down by a swarm of the fiends, and a moment later struggles to his feet, all light gone from his eyes.  
“This is hopeless,” Steven yells over his shoulder at Tony. “They just keep on coming!”  
“I’m open to suggestions!” Tony shouts, kicking one of the undead away when it sways too close.  
“The creature must be nearby,” Steven squints into the storm. What is that? There beyond the wall, a shape moving through the sand, forming and reforming like the murmuration of birds.  
A thought comes to him. Not something so organised as a plan, or even all that wise. Steven doesn’t look too closely ad it, because if he does he’ll realise it’s madness. He scans the battleground, looking for a familiar white blur.  
“Cover me!” he shouts, running over to where Al is batting at a rattling heap of bones and scooping him up.  
“Cover your what?” Tony yells after him.

Steven clutches Al to his chest and starts running, dodging around the undead and the Jabari locked in battle. He hears Barnes yelling after him and feels a stab of guilt. He’s being told to come back, to not be stupid, but he can’t. He has to do something. One of the undead spots him, swaying over with arms outstretched, but before it reaches him it pivots on its heel, dropping to the ground. Another behind it is struck by a bullet between the eyes.  
Steven spins around, peering through the sands. He catches a glimpse of Barnes high up on a wall, machine gun on his shoulder. Sam is at his side, feeding it a fresh ammunition belt. Barnes waves at him to keep going, and Steven feels a rush of affection flood through him. They’re clearing a path.  
“Come on, Al,” he says, and the cat yowls, sinking claws into his jacket.  
The way opens up before him, like Moses parting the sea. Creatures rise up and burst apart, bullets tearing them to pieces, and Steven keeps moving, dodging and weaving until he reaches the city wall.  
A dervish spins along the wall, and within it something shaped like a man spreads out its arms, urging the undead on. It catches sight of Steven approaching and breaks apart, a denser cloud of sand rising up and dispersing in the storm, before regathering and coming down further to the west.

Steven climbs up onto the wall and gives chase. The creature rises up again when Steven has almost reached it, and he swears loudly. Al squirms in his arms, twisting around and wriggling until Steven has to let him go. He drops lightly onto the broken stones, tail bristling like a bottle brush, and starts stalking after the shape moving through the storm.  
“Al!” Steven shouts, scrambling after the bolting cat, but he’s a second too slow.  
The cat tracks the shadow, eyes bright and focused as it splinters apart and coalesces again and again. Oblivious to its stalker, the creature crouches down, arms outstretched, directing its army towards Barnes and Sam up on the high ground. Steven turns to watch, helpless, as the army swarms up towards them; bloated, rotting corpses and rag covered bones reaching out to drag them into the melee. The creature is distracted, its goal almost at hand, and that is when Al pounces.

The creature shrieks. It in awful, unholy sound, bourne of centuries of darkness, like the rake of nails across black granite until fingers bleed. Again and again the creature howls, forming and reforming as Al slashes and bites, vicious and relentless. The creature changes shape as fast as the blink of an eye; a flock of birds, a swarm of scarabs, a mound of sand, and the cat attacks each one as fast as they form, tearing them apart.  
The storm ends in an instant, sand drifting down over the fighters like dust motes. The undead army staggers to a halt, eyes dimmed, and do not resist when the Jabari strike them down. They disintegrate at the slightest touch, sinking into the sand as Anubis walks past, and in his wake there is a low sigh, as if of relief, as they fade away.  
The creature grasps hold of Al, wrenching him free, and throws him to the ground. He lands lightly, fur frizzed, and hisses.  
“A’right, that’s enough,” Anubis says gently as he approaches them. He pauses to scratch Al behind the ear. “Time to go, man.”  
The creature twists, spiralling out into a column of sand. It rages and squalls, while Anubis looks on dispassionately.  
“You done?” he asks as the storm wears itself out, leaving something misshapen that might once have been a man. It cowers before him, whatever is left of it after so much rage has been spent.  
Anubis opens his arms. “ _I nek seχem am χu_.”  
The creature slumps forward, crumbling to dust.

*

What comes next is a blur. The Jabari roar in triumph, and Steven has the fleeting sense of Anubis beside him, his hand a warm, solid weight on Steven’s shoulder, his voice rich with a laughter in his ear. “Go get your man.”  
He doesn’t need telling twice, pushing his way through the jubilations to have Barnes meet him halfway.  
When he thinks back on it later he can’t remember what Barnes said, or if he had anything to offer in return. He doesn’t recall how they came to embrace or who kissed who first.  
None of it matters, not really. Barnes tightens his grip around Steven’s waist, not even flinching as Steven tugs at his hair, pulling him just that little bit closer. When Tony finally drags them apart, Steven is pink-cheeked and breathless.  
“C’mon, Stevie. Let the man breathe.”  
“No,” Barnes laughs, hauling Steven back into his arms. “It’s overrated.”

When they eventually run out of air, if not inclination, they part. Barnes’ hands don’t stray far, alighting on Steven’s waist, on his hip, brushing his shoulder to get his attention. Steven looks around, frowning as the sun beats down in a clear sky. “Where is Anubis?”  
“Gone,” Sam says simply. “To wherever gods go.”  
“Did he run off with my cat?” Barnes asks.  
Sam smiles. “The child of Bast is with your brother and friend. They are seeing what can be done with the plane.”  
Barnes nods, glancing over at where the creature had last been seen, and now there is only sand and stone. The storm has wrought more damage than the passing of time has, and the pillars and obelisks are no more. Even the tomb has gone, sunk far beneath the earth. All that is left are fragments of the wall, jutting out from the sands like blunt teeth. Thinis is no more.  
“I guess you’re out of a job?” Barnes says, shielding his eyes from the sun. there is sand in his hair and dirt smudged on his features, and Steven has never thought then word ‘delectable’ apt for a person before.  
“We will remain vigilant,” Sam says with pride. “This creature was not the only secret lurking in the desert.”  
“Good luck,” Steven says, soft and sincere, and Sam takes him by the hand.  
“You have earned the respect of the Eye of Horus,” he says, looking Steven in the eye.  
“Does that come with a couple of camels?” Barnes asks. “Or maybe a few horses?”  
Sam laughs, clapping Barnes on the shoulder. “I’m sure we can manage something.”

The Jabari have not chosen to linger, and when Steven and Bucky go in search of M’Baku they find him with only a handful of his people, the rest disappearing into the desert.  
M’Baku gives them the once over, and if Steven had hoped for more words like Sam’s he would be disappointed.  
“Thank you,” Steven says, reaching into his pocket to take out the other package Fury had given him. “I was given this. I think it belongs to you?”  
M’Baku unwraps the package to reveal a small figure carved in black granite; a cat. He looks satisfied, and tucks the cat into a pouch on his belt. Across what is left of the wall there is the sound of an engine tuning over before sputtering out, and a chorus of cursing.  
“What will you do now?” Barnes asks M’Baku.  
“Return to our ancestral home,” M’Baku replies. “To the mountains of Wakanda.”  
The engine kicks up again, and Steven walks over to the sound, peering down the steep slope to where Tony and Dugan are arguing over the plane. The city must have taken the brunt of the storm, for though the paint has been stripped from the top of the wings and along the side, it is intact.  
He hears Barnes and M’Baku exchanging words, but doesn’t catch the gist of it, making his way down the slope to see what is going on.

Al chirps at the sight of Steven approaching, and gambols over to rub against his leg before rolling onto his foot. Steven wriggles the toe of his boot, and the cat pounces on it, scratching at the leather with his claws.  
“Tony?” Steven calls. “Sam said we can have a couple of camels to get back to Cairo.”  
Tony pops up, straight-backed, from behind the open engine case, a wrench in his hand. He looks like a mongoose, and Steven stifles a chuckle.  
“Oh. Right.” He’s stripped off his jacket and rolled up his shirtsleeves, his arms smeared in engine grease from fingers to elbows.  
He looks _happy_.  
Dugan sits up from where he’s been poking at the fuselage, and clears his throat in a loud harrumph.  
“See. The things is,” Tony gestures with the wrench. Me and Dum-Dum here-”  
“Dum-Dum,” Steven echoes, and Dugan gives him a smart little salute.  
“Me and Dum-Dum think we can get this thing-”  
“Bird,” Dugan shouts helpfully.  
“-bird up in the air in, oh say less than an hour.” Tony frowns. “Two hours tops.”  
Steven hesitates. It’s been so long since he’s seen Tony excited by something that wasn’t made of gold.  
“And there’s a couple of old, uh, birds down at the airfield that I might take a look at.” Tony grins suddenly. “And the last thing you guys need right now is a big brother hanging around. Especially one who knows some really good stories about when you-”  
“ _Okay_ ,” Steven says, holding up his hands. “I’ll see you in Cairo.”  
“Yeah.” Tony ducks behind the engine again. “Hang a sock on your doorknob if you guys are-”  
“Thank you, Tony!” Steven shouts, climbing back up the slope to where Barnes is waiting for him.

They are barely a half hour into the desert when the plane soars past overhead. Their camel lets out a low rumble but doesn’t break its stride, ambling at a leisurely pace across the sands.  
Steven is sitting at the front, Barnes a solid weight against his back. He can feel the steady thump of his heart against his ribs, hands resting firmly on his hips.  
Al, curled around Barnes’ shoulders, yawns and stretches, resting one paw on Steven’s shoulder. He hooks in a claw, tugging gently, and Barnes carefully extracts it, stroking the cat’s ears until he settles down to sleep.  
As the camel takes them west, Steven maps out a paper in his head on Third Dynasty hieroglyphics. There’s a lot to write, and no doubt Mr Fury will try to argue about what can and can’t be known to the public. There’s also his job to take care of. He’s reasonably sure he can get it back, and maybe with a bit of a-  
“Stop.” Barnes kisses the nape of his neck, sending a tingling shiver down Steven’s spine. “I can hear you thinking, stop it.”  
There are plenty of arguments he could be making, but instead Steven tilts his head to one side, offering up a little more skin to kiss and nuzzle. “So distract me.”  
Barnes huffs, rubbing his chin against Steven’s shoulder, stubble scratching in a way that’s very distracting. It’s hard to think about cartouches and glyphs when Barnes’ lips are brushing against the curve of his earlobe, or the Jabari disappearing into the desert on their way to-  
“Wait!” Steven yelps, twisting around to search the desert behind them, but the Jabari are long gone. He looks back at Barnes, who regards him with a mix of affection and exasperation. “Where did M’Baku say they were going?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> wakpo ha - attack them  
> I nek seχem am χu - come to me, thy sekhem (vitality) within the khu (spirit)


End file.
